Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 20 Mar 1985

Vol. 107 No. 10

Joint Committee on Marriage Breakdown: Motion.

Mrs. Robinson

I was asked by the Chairman of the Joint Committee on Marriage Breakdown to move this motion and accordingly I move:

That the period for reporting back of the Joint Committee on Marriage Breakdown be extended to the 2nd April, 1985.

The Joint Committee, at their meeting this morning learned with regret of the illness of its clerk and that because of this it was not possible to have the report assembled, printed and circulated to members in time for formal adoption today by the Joint Committee. In the circumstances, the Joint Committee decided to defer formal adoption of the report to Wednesday next, 27 March 1985, and presentation to both Houses and publication to Tuesday, 2 April 1985. Members of the House will see that this was something which could not be either foreseen or avoided. It is a regrettable situation but it is one of illness of a member of staff and in the circumstances the members of the committee had no option but unanimously to decide to seek a further brief extension in order that we may have our final meeting to adopt formally our report which is now basically, to all intents and purposes, completed. It will then be laid before the Houses and published on 2 April 1985. I would ask for the support of the House for this further brief extension.

Mrs. Bulbulia

I just rise formally to second this request and to corroborate all that has been said by my colleague, Senator Robinson.

Mr. Ross

I know that this is a fairly formal motion asking the Seanad for another extension of time for the marriage breakdown committee. This committee and its extensions have reached the realm of farce at this stage. They have been looking for months, six months, three weeks, two months, two months — I have lost count. I do not know whether this is the fourth, fifth or the sixth extension which the committee looked for. It may be that this time, for the first time, there is a reasonable excuse for an extension. We have read in the newspapers — we have not actually seen the formal report — that this committee have failed to reach an agreement on the position of divorce, on whether to make a recommendation about divorce. This committee have not only looked for about five extensions from this House and from the Dáil but have looked for five extensions to produce a report on marital breakdown which failed to make a recommendation for the purpose for which they were set up. I am not going to force the House to have a vote on this because I think it would be wasting time, but I think it is absurd for a committee set up for a particular purpose — and that particular purpose is to make a recommendation on a vital issue, which is divorce — to ask the House for a fifth extension in order to produce a report which comes to no conclusions.

Mr. Loughrey

This postponement would appear to be inevitable because of the cause of it. Like Senator Ross, I wonder is it worth while giving an extension to a committee that is partly comprised of members who had taken a decision before they participated in the committee that they would not recommend anything——

An Cathaoirleach

That does not arise.

Mrs. McGuinness

Just in reply to what Senator Ross said, this is not a committee that was set up solely for the purpose of making recommendations about divorce. Whatever my personal feelings may be about the recommendations or lack of them, and the leaks about the proceedings of the committee last week may be accurate or inaccurate — I would argue that the report given last Tuesday night on Radio Telefís Éireann was totally inaccurate — the committee have at least moved to make one very firm recommendation, that there should be a referendum on this question. That seems to be a step forward. To dismiss this committee's work as just a matter of making a two line recommendation one way or the other, for divorce or not for divorce, is to ignore the fact that the committee have produced a report which will consist of approximately 170 to 200 pages and which deals with the whole range of questions with regard to the protection of the family, dealing with the question of marriage breakdown——

An Cathaoirleach

I am afraid you are going into the report in detail.

Mrs. McGuinness

No, I am not trying to deal with it in much detail. I am simply saying that when we ask for this ten day extension we are doing so for a purely technical reason, because of the sickness of the clerk of the committee and to refer to this as a ridiculous extension seems to be quite unfair to the work of the committee, especially to those of us who have attended virtually every meeting of the committee over a period of almost two years and who have put a great deal of work into it.

I support the motion before the House, that the date be extended for the minimal period of ten days which will enable us to assemble the document which has been basically agreed between members of the committee. In fairness to the members of the Fianna Fáil Party in this House, I might say that there was not a party division on the recommendations of the committee. It should be said, also in fairness to the Fianna Fáil members of the committee, that the decisions of the committee were not made along totally party lines. We look for this extension in order to allow the assembling of the report and its proper presentation to the House and to the public generally and to remind the House that it deals with a great many other important questions besides simply the question of a referendum on the question of divorce.

Question put and agreed to.