Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I understand exactly where the Senator is coming from. Speaking of being married or not married, a friend of my father for 33 years was married for seven years. When he separated from his wife, he moved in and lived with another woman. When he died 26 years later his pension was paid to his former wife, not to the woman he lived with. That was an anomaly. What I see in this constitutional referendum is that lawyers will make money for decades as we try to battle our way to understand what is meant by this, that or the other.

Senator Ruane referred to the issue of marriage versus durable relationships. Senator McDowell highlighted the wording that the State pledges itself to guard with special care the institution of marriage and to protect it against attack, and then read out the remaining subsections of that article. Whether we like it or not, and Senator Ruane has referred to this, we have placed marriage on a higher tier than a durable relationship. Senator Ruane said we can fix that with legislation. This is the Constitution. It should be fixed in the Constitution, not in some legislation that will follow at some stage in the future.

Senator Seery Kearney referred yesterday to the elasticity of the definition of the family. We should encompass the definition of the family so as not to exclude, which is done in the wording "durable relationships". In one part of this, we talk about durable relationships. Why have the wording "whether founded on marriage or on other durable relationships" in Article 41.1 when the only thing taken out of the current Article 41.3 are the words "on which the family is founded" and the word "marriage" is left in? Why is the word "marriage" in there and why was the term "durable relationship" not just put in there?

Both sides are right but I disagree with Senator Ruane's view that we would have to enact legislation to correct what is missing from this wording. My view is that leaving it to the courts to decide what is and is not a durable relationship is wrong in every sense of the word. Yesterday, Senator Higgins referred to the constant drive in this country to force people into the courts to get explanations or answers.This morning when thinking about this I was thinking about Vicky Phelan, and that other poor woman from Kilkenny who was dragged to her deathbed while the State defended an indefensible position. Is that what we want out of this referendum? Do we want a situation where single mothers and those in durable relationships - or who believe they are in a durable relationship but whom the court believes they are not - are dragged through the courts? Do we want a situation where some guy walks out? Senator Ruane is 100% correct. I know of dozens of cases of men who walked out on their wives and children and left them penniless and never paid maintenance. Time and again they are not dragged back to the courts and they just ignore it. She is 100% right. If the State really cared it would deduct the maintenance straight out of your wages and send it straight to the woman who is looking after the children - or to the man, although there are fewer men caught that way than women. We leave it to those who are less able to fight their corner to fight their corner. It took extreme courage to stick with the case decided on yesterday in the Supreme Court, and get to the Supreme Court. I am really concerned.

The debate today is the most instructive debate I have heard for a long time in this House. What we needed was time to tease out all of these issues and to take on board the amendments being brought forward in good faith. They are good amendments. There are people here who I do not agree with. There are people I like and people I do not like. However, at the end of the day, I have not seen anything in an amendment that I would not want to try to support as best I can. I really think that what we are going to do with this, if it passes, is create a field day for lawyers as we try to resolve the family law issues it will lead to.

I do not want to go on too long. Before I finish, I am extremely concerned that the word on the street is that the Government has threatened the NGOs that would be directly impacted by this legislation, that if they do not support a "Yes" vote, their funding may be hit. One of the statements made on 6 January needs to be addressed by the Minister in this House. One of the statements made by the National Women's Council of Ireland was that a "No" vote on Article 41 would see the State's oppressive role in keeping women-----