Taoiseach favours rights for gay couples

damien

http://www.rte.ie/news/2004/1114/ahernb.html

14 November 2004 18:57

The Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, has said it is time gay couples are given recognition on issues like tax and inheritance rights. In an interview to be broadcast on RTÉ's The Week in Politics, Mr Ahern also said the former Taoiseach, Charles Haughey, will be remembered for his achievements rather than his ethical lapses.

The interview marks Mr Ahern's 10 years as leader of Fianna Fáil. Mr Ahern said the Government should try to deal with some of the issues gay couples have to overcome in their daily lives.

You're Taoiseach Bertie, you can actually do something about it besides pandering to the pink vote.

Stark

I wonder does he know anything about that clause in the Civil Registrations Act.

Amnesiac_ie

Bertie kept emphasizing that "these people" only number 1300 co-habiting couples; I presume he was using the data from the last census which was not appropriate as it is safe to assume that question under reported the number of lesbian and gay couples living together.

Minister Éamon Ó Cuív "qualified" the Taoiseach's remarks on Morning Ireland this morning by explaining that the rights FF have in mind should also be extended to all couples who live together, be they friends, siblings, nuns whatever. To me, that sounded as if the rights he would like to extend to gay couples could never be equal to those conferred on married hetero folk.

So equality by stealth from a shrewd "caring Christian politician" CJ Haughey described as "the most clever, the most cunning, the best of the lot" or merely a token soundbite to placate the queers?

Boston

What exactly where you expecting. The only way I can see same sex marriages being recognized here, is if it forced upon us by the EU. No politician in Ireland cares enough to actually deal with it, or touch it with a 19 foot poll.

damien

Boston wrote:

No politician in Ireland cares enough to actually deal with it, or touch it with a 19 foot poll.

David Norris does. Mary Robinson did.

Yoda

Why? It's not as though same-sex marriage poses a threat to anyone.

Boston

damien.m wrote:

David Norris does. Mary Robinson did.

Mary Robinson attached here flag to any hand wavy liberest movement she could. I lost all respect for her when in the space of afew weeks, she not only condemned the wholesale slaughter by the Israeli's of the Palestinian people, but also the Palestinian's for expressing anti Semitic views. I've zero time for her. Isn't David Norris senator, not exactly in a position to have any meaningful effect on government policies. It's easy to support x y and z, when you know you'll never be in a position where you'll have to actually back up those what you say with action and results.

Boston

Yoda wrote:

Why? It's not as though same-sex marriage poses a threat to anyone.

well apparently it will cost the goverment billions in tax relief. Don't exactly know how, but it was one of the stories (I think the indy) ran after those lesbians won their right to appeil.

damien

Boston wrote:

Mary Robinson attached here flag to any hand wavy liberest movement she could.

Such as gay rights.

Mary Robinson was David Norris's barrister and fought Ireland in the EU Courts to make them overturn the law that said homosexuality was a crime. To my dying day I will respect her for that. No matter what else she does it cannot take from what she has done.

David Norris is the politician who gay men have to thank for not being so marginalised as they once were. He put a lot of time and money to make life easier for every homosexual in this country. He may only be a senator but a senator still has a very important role in politics and it is quite disrespectful to tarnish his work in the senate without evening knowing his past work there or previous to that.

As for saying it's easy to support things without sticking your neck out, I think more than any other politician Norris is an example of what real politics is about. He believes in what he supports and has a detailed history of where he always stuck his neck out for the greater good.

damien

Boston wrote:

well apparently it will cost the goverment billions in tax relief.

Actually no it won't. The revenue commissioners even said so. The figure of billions came from their report too. This was an extreme case where they gave every citizen in the country the same tax benefits as a married couple. So anyone in the tax system would get the same tax breaks that married couples have at the moment. It was all but agreed that something like this would be highly improbable but they listed it anyway.

Boston

Sorry but you listing David Norris just proved my original point, that change would have to forced upon the government at an EU level. From start to finish it took nearly 10 years for homosexuality to be recognized as not being a crime here. I was less talking about David Norris and more Mary Robinson when I talked about tokenism.

To my dying day I will respect her for that. No matter what else she does it cannot take from what she has done.

Well we're not going to agree on that then. You can make your case and try to change my mind on here, I'm willing to listen. Maybe its my background, or where I come from but I don't like her, I don't like people.

He may only be a senator but a senator still has a very important role in politics and it is quite disrespectful to tarnish his work in the senate without evening knowing his past work there or previous to that.

His past achievement were not made possible or aided by the fact he was a senator, but where actually achieved despite the fact he failed to be elected.
the senate is a talk shop, for over the hill TD's, or up and coming TD's trying to get the parties to notice them, They quieten down once they get power.

As for the tax relief, I figured it was bull.

FranknFurter

Boston wrote:

well apparently it will cost the goverment billions in tax relief. Don't exactly know how, but it was one of the stories (I think the indy) ran after those lesbians won their right to appeil.

Wow!!
just think of how many "spike" thingies we could erect in dublin for that!!??



lolol

Boston

lol lmao wowzer and other such bull****. Clearly the sarcasium sensors in my computer cannot pick up a relay them to the screen, like they used to.

BuffyBot

I lost all respect for her when in the space of afew weeks, she not only condemned the wholesale slaughter by the Israeli's of the Palestinian people, but also the Palestinian's for expressing anti Semitic views.

Am I missing something here? Why can she not find fault with both parties, if indeed they have faults?

Boston

Well one was made as a token gesture to appease the yanks. If she had made them at the same time it might have been one thing, but she didn't. Also if one people are murdering indiscriminately another people, its hardly right to condemn them for hating that people. TBH it stinks of compromising values if she did it for that yanks, and the self righteous egotism the east often accuses the west of having, if these are actually her views. To the best of my knowledge marry Robinson didn't grow up in a Palestinian refugee camp, she really has no right to tell them how they should feel at it. Don't blame the victim basically.

De Rebel

From today's Irish Times

Something short of marriage?

It is crucial we start a debate on extending the rights of cohabiting couples, whether or not they are same-sex, writes John Mee.

Recent litigation by a lesbian couple seeking recognition of their Canadian marriage and now comments by the Taoiseach have stimulated debate about the legal status in Ireland of same-sex couples and unmarried cohabitees generally.

Despite a common misapprehension, the law does not recognise the notion of a "common law marriage" which would confer rights after a certain period of cohabitation.

However, change may be in the air. In April, the Law Reform Commission published a Consultation Paper on The Rights and Duties of Cohabitees which provisionally proposes sweeping reform.

In considering how the law might be changed in this area, it is important to think specifically about the different types of relationship at issue. Same-sex couples are in a special position since they do not have the option to marry. The trend in Europe in recent years has been to allow same-sex couples to enter into civil partnerships which carry some of the rights associated with marriage (with the extent of the rights depending on the terms of the legislation in the country in question).

A smaller number of jurisdictions have gone further and permitted gay marriage. The British government is in the process of introducing civil partnership legislation for same-sex couples, although this has run into some problems in the House of Lords.

In light of modern conceptions of equality (recognised in the Constitution and reinforced by the European Convention on Human Rights), it is difficult to argue against, at the least, the introduction of a civil partnership scheme for same-sex couples in Ireland.

Some will fear that this would undermine the institution of marriage. However, a crucial aspect of marriage is the unique symbolic affirmation it gives to a relationship. A civil partnership scheme falls short of affording this special affirmation to same-sex relationships (and for this reason many gay activists would argue that it does not go far enough).

What such a scheme would do is extend to registered couples some of the legal regulation which currently governs only married couples. Much of this legal regulation is of very recent vintage and cannot plausibly be regarded as an intrinsic attribute of marriage. To take one important example, the legislation allowing for the redistribution of property upon marital breakdown dates back only to 1989.

It is important, however, to recognise that introducing civil partnership (or gay marriage) would not address all the issues in this area. There would remain a substantial number of heterosexual and same-sex couples who, for a variety of reasons, do not choose marriage, or would not enter a civil partnership.

In its consultation paper, the Law Reform Commission provisionally proposes a legislative scheme which would confer rights on couples, including same-sex couples, who have lived together in a marriage-like relationship for at least three years (or two years where there is a child of the relationship).

Under these proposals, broadly based on existing New South Wales legislation, a qualifying couple would automatically gain rights across a wide range of areas, including property adjustment, maintenance, taxation, pensions, succession, and domestic violence.

Unfortunately, the LRC declined to address the important question of whether their proposals would operate in addition to, or instead of, a civil partnership scheme.

A significant problem with the LRC proposals is that they assume that the special protection for marriage in Article 41 of the Constitution would require the exclusion from the scheme of cohabitees who are married to a third-party, even if that marriage is dead for all practical purposes.

Such an exclusion (which arguably is not, in fact, required by the Constitution) would cause the scheme to operate in an unacceptably discriminatory manner.

Moreover, it could lead vulnerable cohabitees to believe they are protected, whereas in fact (because, for example, they or their partner is only judicially separated and not divorced) they would have no protection. It is significant that the constitutional provisions on marriage have had an adverse influence on the LRC's proposals.

Those provisions have also led one High Court judge to hold that attempts by cohabitees to regulate their rights by contract are void under the Constitution.

Moreover, the Constitution could conceivably create obstacles to the introduction of a civil partnership scheme. Because of all this, there is a pressing need to modernise the constitutional provisions on the family, and one can only welcome the recent engagement of the Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution with this issue.

In trying to suggest the best way forward for the law, it must be recognised that increased legal regulation is not the answer to all problems. It is unclear whether Irish society is ready for the imposition of rights and duties on cohabitees who have not chosen to enter into any formal commitment.

While rates of cohabitation have risen sharply in Ireland in recent years, the Irish figures put us in the lower third of countries in Europe in this respect.

Other European countries, including Britain where cohabitation rates are far higher, have generally been unwilling to introduce the sort of automatic regime proposed by the LRC, restricting themselves to the introduction of civil partnerships schemes.

An obvious first step would be to try, through a publicly-funded programme of advertisements, to raise public awareness of the very limited legal regulation of relationships outside marriage.

In tandem with this, one could put one's reforming energy initially into the introduction of civil partnership legislation, identifying and (hopefully) dealing with any constitutional obstacles on the way.

This would leave open the possibility of later introducing a wide-ranging scheme to regulate the rights of couples who have not chosen to marry or to register a civil partnership (without prejudice to the possible introduction in the shorter term of more focused reforms in particular areas).

It is difficult to be categorical in making recommendations in this area because of the complexity of the issues and the wide range of possible human relationships.

However, increased debate on the subject, usefully informed by the LRC's consultation paper, must be the best way to develop a just and workable solution.

Dr John Mee is a senior lecturer in the Law Faculty, University College, Cork, and author of The Property Rights of Cohabitees (Hart Publishing, 1999) and co-author of The Partnership Rights of Same Sex Couples (Equality Authority, 2000).

Yoda

One thing that really irritates me is this "Ireland is not ready for gay marriage" lark. If Ireland weren't ready for it, there wouldn't be people here who wanted it for themselves. And anyone who doesn't want it for themselves, well... what they hell should they care?