Government contests a lesbian couple

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The Government has decided to contest a legal action brought by a lesbian couple seeking to have their Canadian marriage recognised in Ireland and to have the Revenue Commissioners treat them as a married couple under the tax Acts, writes Carl O'Brien, Social Affairs Correspondent.

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Here you go. This is bad, bad, bad.

Ministers are fearful of the financial and social implications of recognising same-sex marriages. A successful ruling could also have wide-ranging tax implications for the estimated 77,000 cohabiting couples in the State.

The Cabinet agreed to contest the case this week after the Attorney General advised the Government that it had good grounds to fight the action.

A High Court hearing, which is likely to last several days, is expected later this year or early next year.

The decision to contest the action comes despite indications from Taoiseach Bertie Ahern last year that the Government was willing to grant legal recognition for tax and inheritance purposes to couples in same-sex relationships.

Although Mr Ahern said last November that marriage for homosexual couples was "a long way off", he agreed that such couples should be treated fairer within the tax and legal codes.

Census figures for 2002 show that just 1,300 couples described themselves as same-sex cohabiting couples. The census also showed that there were 77,600 family units based on cohabiting couples in the State. Two-thirds of these couples have children.

The Government is concerned at the financial implications of recognising cohabiting couples.

According to a Department of Finance discussion paper, the cost of extending the tax benefits of married couples to cohabiting couples would be €167 million a year.

The Tax Strategy Group, an interdepartmental committee, chaired by the Department of Finance, also said widening the standard rate band and removing married couple tax credit transfers, while also ensuring nobody was worse off than at present, would cost an estimated €2 billion in a full year.

The Department of Social and Family Affairs is also conducting a review into the social welfare code in the context of equal status legislation. Officials say this is likely to "take some years to complete".

In the meantime the Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution is examining the issue of legal recognition of gay unions and the place of the non-marital family in Irish law.

The case was discussed at Cabinet this week after solicitors for the couple taking the case, Katherine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan, warned that the State had failed to meet a deadline earlier this year to file a defence for the case.

The Attorney General is understood to have advised the Cabinet it may have strong grounds to contest the action as the Constitution does not make reference to sex and underlines the importance of the family.

Article 3.1 of the Constitution says: "The State pledges itself to guard with special care the institution of marriage, on which the family is founded, and to protect it against attack."

Ms Zappone and Ms Gilligan claim there is no legal impediment to recognition of a same-sex marriage. They claim their right to marry and respect for their private and family life have been breached as have their rights to benefits under tax law. The conduct of the Revenue Commissioners and State has, they claim, caused them distress, inconvenience, loss and damage.

The couple say this discrimination breaches their rights under the Constitution, European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, and the charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU.