Senator Robinson is in possession.
Report of Joint Committee on Marriage Breakdown: Motion (Resumed).
The following motion was moved by Senator Dooge on Thursday, 27 June 1985:
That Seanad Éireann welcomes the Report of the Joint Committee on Marriage Breadkown, urges the widest possible debate on its recommendations and calls on the Government to consider the holding of a Referendum on Article 41.3.2º of the Constitution.
Debate resumed on amendment No. 1:
To delete all words after "Government" and substitute the following:—
"to hold a referendum on Article 41.3.2º of the Constitution within the lifetime of the present Government".
—(Senator Ross.)
I had just begun my contribution to this debate on the last occasion and I propose to turn, first, to the divorce issue. Before doing so I would just comment that it may be regrettable that we have one ominbus report on marriage breakdown which runs to a total of 176 pages. It might have been better, in retrospect, if the joint committee had issued separate interim reports on the different aspects of marriage law, for example, on custody, on maintenance, on nullity, on barring orders, on separation agreements, on family courts and so on. Each of these areas is of the utmost importance. Each of them could be the subject of a very useful and constructive debate in this House. It is quite difficult, and this is evident from the debate so far, for Senators to do justice to this report in one debate. Most of us are taking a long time in our contributions, but even so, it is quite difficult to do justice to the importance of the recommendations in this report, to their significance for reform of marriage law generally and to the urgency with which we need the reforms which are put forward in that report.
I propose to begin my contribution by turning to the issue of divorce. This was the crucial social question behind the establishment of the joint committee and it remains the central issue in the debate on their report. Divorce in Ireland is inevitable. This debate is about whether the Government are prepared to give the necessary leadership and to face the social realities in order to bring about an awareness and a willingness to accept the necessity for a legal remedy for couples and their children who are trapped, at the moment, in an impossible situation. It requires courage. It requires a willingness to invest the necessary time and political commitment to that debate. If the Government are willing to take on board that task — and some members of the Cabinet have already expressed a personal willingness to do so — they will find the report of the Joint Committee on Marriage Breakdown very helpful in the sense that it is clearly pro the need for divorce. This is different from the desirability of divorce as in many ways divorce is evidence of a failure of a marriage and as such cannot be desired in the sense that one would desire something that was intrinsically good.
The report of the Joint Committee on Marriage Breakdown was much more pro the necessity for the legal remedy of divorce than has been recognised. The reasons which were given by the joint committee for recommending that a referendum be held, were arrived at after weighing all the arguments. Having weighed them the conclusion reached by the committee was that divorce was necessary because of the harshness and unfairness of the present law, because of the many anomalies in the law which bring the law itself and marriage into disrepute, and on the basis of the compelling and sad evidence of a steady rise in marriage breakdown. I will be looking in some detail, as other contributors have done, at the way in which these arguments are presented and the conclusions reached in the report. Essentially the thrust of the argument and the weight of the evidence is in favour of this country facing up to the need for the legal remedy of divorce: trying up the legal knots on a personal marriage relationship which has irretrievably broken down. We need that now and we needed it a decade ago. We need a Government who have the courage to face up to this issue.
I will also deal, at a later stage when I come to the merits of the report, with the context in which we should discuss this issue. It is extremely important that we appreciate that context: that we are talking about a fundamental social issue with extremely important ramifications for our society, that it is an issue for legislators, that it is an issue for the elected representative to determine the social good in these circumstances.
One aspect of the debate which has not been sufficiently highlighted, but which is referred to in the report, should be a matter of grave concern to this House as it was to the members of the joint committee. It is that marriage itself may be on the decline in Ireland. We cannot be at all complacent because the figures show that there has been a noticeable and definite trend which indicates that marriage is less popular now than it was ten years ago. The percentage of the population of marriageable age who are marrying is declining steadily. It declined from 7.4 per thousand in 1971 to 5.5 per thousand in 1982-83. That is a significant decline in social terms. Most of us see the evidence of it around us. We see young people living together but not marrying. If asked why they are not marrying, they point to the image that marriage has, the trap of marriage, the incidence of marriage breakdown from which parties to a marriage cannot extricate themselves, and more and more people are saying "Why should we take that step? " We should be aware that not only are they saying it here but that they are saying it in much greater numbers in other European countries, with a different cultural approach to ours, one which we do not have to emulate. We should be aware that a significant proportion, in some countries a majority, of young people are not marrying. If one of the crucial objectives of our examination of this issue is to examine it in the context of recognising the value of marriage and seeking to promote marriage, then we must be aware that at present the case can certainly be made that the absence of divorce legislation in Ireland is damaging marriage. It is damaging the very relationship which we seek to protect. That is not an overstatement. The way in which the present oppressive situation has created so many visible problems in our society is actually damaging the value that we on all sides of this House seek to promote, the value of stable lasting marriage.
The report of the joint committee shows the pressures which lead to marriage breakdown. It tries, as very few reports of parliamentary committees have in the past, to get beyond technicalities, to look — sometimes a bit naively; sometimes a bit clumsily — at some of the pressures on modern marriage. It examines the pressures on individuals and on couples, and the societal pressures, economic pressures and pressures relating to the different development of members of a marriage and a family. The committee conclude that the demand for divorce is mounting and will continue to mount as the pressures on marriage increase. A number of the recommendations are very positive in showing the steps we could take but — Senator Bulbulia and Senator McGuinness emphasised on the last occasion when this was debated, — significantly have not been taken to try to support marriage, to try to correct some of these trends and to provide helpful preventive measures and real support and relief to people who are encountering difficulties in their marriage.
Apart from all the existing pressures that are identified in the report there will be a further element to this debate, when — I hope very soon — we begin to consider a proposal to remove the status of illegitimacy, and to consider the general proposals contained in the discussion paper on the status of children.
I am glad to welcome the Minister of State who will have responsibilities in that regard. We are about to consider a Bill to remove the legal disabilities for the child or children of a relationship outside marriage. That is a recognition of a family status. I hope the Bill will ensure that the relationship between the parents and the child is as fully recognised as can be achieved under our system of law, because the law should accept the reality that stable relationships outside marriage are families. That is a reality which is recognised as a human right under the European Convention for the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms. If we take that step then we as a society are recognising rights in a family relationship outside marriage. If we do that it makes even less sense — even less social and political sense — for us to refuse arbitrarily and totally to allow people to re-marry. We should say, if that is the case, that at a certain stage people would have the choice and the freedom to re-marry. There will be quite a direct co-relation between the debate on the Status of Children Bill, or whatever the legislation will be entitled and the issues which we are discussing today on this report on marriage breakdown.
At present we have the worst situation of all. We have a constitutional ban on divorce but a number of different kinds of what may be termed "divorce Irish style" which do not protect the economic and legal position of spouses and children involved. We have divorce in Ireland. We all know it. We all know people who are either calling themselves divorced or acting as if they were divorced. Yet, there is a total lack of legal protection and legal regulation. We turn a blind eye on our marriage law. How can we say that we are concerned about protecting marriage and the family when we just do not want to know and do not want to look?
What are these Irish style divorces which are increasingly common in our society? A number of them are available only to those who can afford to take steps to obtain a divorce outside the country. Basically, there are two types of divorce that can be obtained outside Ireland. Increasingly, there does not seem to be too much difference between them, because the currency has been so undermined and attitudes are so cynical that it does not really matter all that much — even legally — whether one has a fully recognised foreign divorce or what might be termed a limping foreign divorce. The effect may be quite the same for the couple concerned. I would like to explain that. The only divorce which will be fully recognised abroad is where the parties were domiciled in the country of the court which makes the divorce decree. That means in effect the husband, because the wife automatically takes the domicile of her husband. He must be domiciled, in the technical sense of being habitually resident with an intent to continue to reside in that other country. That sometimes happens, and if it happens then the divorced person may come back and re-marry in Ireland. I intend to deal later with the question of how that really operates by referring to a passage in the evidence taken by the committee on marriage breakdown. We are not talking about a court recognising divorce, but about a civil servant in the customs office deciding on whether or not a divorced person can remarry in the State. We have now got seveal hundred divorced persons remarrying in the State because a civil servant, the Registrar General of Marriages, said "Yes, that is one that would have been recognised and therefore you can remarry that person in the State".
The other type of foreign divorce is the limping divorce, as lawyers sometimes call it, the divorce that would not be recognised in this country. We have agencies here in Dublin who are in the business of securing for people who are able to afford it a Mexican divorce, a Haitian divorce, or a Puerto Rican divorce. One can have one's divorce, remarriage and honeymoon all thrown in, all at very knock down prices. Indeed, to get a foreing divorce one may not even have to leave the country. It does not matter too much if the divorce is recognised, because you have got the status of being a divorced person.
If you are well enough off, and equipped with sufficient knowledge to be able to get a foreign divorce of that kind — even a mickey mouse foreign divorce — you can have access to Irish lawyers who will ensure that a separation agreement has tied up all the knots internally. If you have a separation agreement dealing with matters like custody, family, home, maintenance and succession rights, then you have all those issues regulated, and all you need is the status of getting a bit of paper from a foreign country that is prepared to give it to you stating that you are divorced, you can remarry outside the country — in England or Northern Ireland — and you have achieved the objective.
Of course, there are a number of other ways of seeking relief, and they are referred to in the report of the Committee on Marriage Breakdown. These do not go so far as to secure a bit of paper saying that a person is divorced. Instead you may change your name by deed poll, or even not change your name by deed poll, but just call yourself by the name of your partner, live together as Mr. and Mrs. So-and-So, because the woman takes the man's name. That is less necessary now because more women, happily, are retaining their own names and there is more freedom in the matter. Nonetheless, it is one way of seeking to establish some sort of bond between the couple as far as the external world is concerned, some way of affirming the stability of their relationship in the absence of any right on their part to remarry.
We have the truly sad situation of people who think they are married but who are not. Those are people in circumstances where one or other was married in the Catholic Church and obtained a Catholic Church annulment and that person went through a second marriage, so they believe that they are married. There has been the tragic case where a couple in those circumstances, when the second marriage had taken place, tried to adopt a child. The child had been placed with them. They had gone through the whole procedure, practically up to the door of the adoption board, when it was discovered that they could not adopt a child, that the child should not have been placed with them in the first place as they were not married. You had this shattering situation where this couple who though they were doing things properly, thought that they had complied with the full marriage law as they saw it — married in the Catholic Church, Catholic Church annulment, remarriage in the Catholic Church. The State turns a blind eye on these second marriages. They are bigamous, but there have not been prosecutions for bigamy. We do not want to face up to that reality.
You have the tragic situation, therefore, where a couple may find at a very late stage that they cannot adopt a child because they are not, in fact, married. Or it can happen that the marriage relationship goes wrong and that one or other of the partners gets the advice of lawyers that it is all right: that he or she does not have to maintain or that there is no right to a barring order there.
This is what we are presiding over. This is our so-called marriage law. This is a situation which contributes to the increasing —"hesitation" is too weak a term — aversion of young people to the idea of being what they would describe as trapped into that kind of relationship. This is one of the major concerns which we must have in looking at the whole situation. You can have the marriage after Church annulment, which is not a true marriage, and you have the relatively high incidence of desertion.
We are one of the few countries that has a special category in our social welfare code of deserted wives. You do not have a category of "deserted spouses" because we have had over a significant number of years the pattern used to justify a certain category: a high incidence of deserted wives which again reflects on our approach to and our lack of support for marriage. All of these relationships are unprotected or inadequately protected. These are the issues which we, as legislators, must face. They are the issues which the Government must face up to if they are to come to terms with this problem.
That is the background to the report and the recommendation on this issue of the Joint Committee on Marriage Breakdown. The joint committee operated under a number of time constraints which have already been referred to in this debate. They were established in July 1983 to bring in a report within a year. In late June 1984 they had to seek an extension to December 1984 and ultimately a further extension up to the beginning of April 1985. This report was published on 27 March 1985.
The committee summarised their recommendations on the divorce issue at page 120 of the report. It is worth referring to this summary because the summary makes it very clear what the considered view and recommendations of the joint committee were.
The Committee is of the opinion that:
A referendum should be held in relation to the question whether the Oireachtas should be empowered to introduce divorce legislation. (Paragraph 7.8.29)
Any such referendum should be in a positive format, replacing the present Article 41.3.2º of the Constitution with a provision, specifically authorising the Oireachtas to legislate for the dissolution of marriage. (Paragraph 7.8.29)
Any such amendment should be drafted in such a way as to ensure that the basic emphasis of Article 41 is not altered, in that the Article should continue to place a duty on the State to protect the family and the institution of marriage and to recognise the family as the natural, primary and fundamental unit group of society. (Paragraph 7.8.30)
If any such referendum should be held and should be passed:
(a)A situation of divorce on demand would not be appropriate in this country and would not be acceptable to the people.
(b)It is essential that adequate safeguards must be built into any divorce legislation to take account of the State interest in fostering and protecting marriage and the family.
(c)It is essential that any divorce legislation should make proper provision for the protection of the dependent spouses and the welfare of dependent children who might be affected by the grant of a decree of divorce.
You had a parliamentary committee recommending and expressing an opinion, along the lines I have just quoted, in March of this year. What has happened since then? In the course of this debate a number of contributors have referred to the question of the timing of a referendum. Senator Dooge referred to it in opening. Senators Ferris and Bulbulia also referred to the timing of the referendum which has been recommended by the joint committee.
The problem is that joint committees, particularly those dealing with such sensitive issues, do not operate in a vacuum. The report of the joint committee was published on 27 March and there has not yet been any Government response. We know from an interview the Minister for Foreign Affairs gave last month that the Cabinet have not yet considered the matter. Public opinion is influenced by official attitudes. If the official attitude is not one of welcome for the report, of noting it and giving early endorsement to what a parliamentary committee recommended, or at least indicating a favourable willingness to have it discussed early in the Oireachtas or the Cabinet, that directly influences public opinion. It conditions the attitude which the media have, which political correspondents have and which newspaper editors have on this issue. It is disappointing and even damaging to an affirmative approach to this matter that there has been such a slow and unresolved Government response. It is as though the Government were adopting the old cliché "There go the people and I must follow for I am their leader."
Has it got to the stage when, even though a parliamentary committee have weighed the issues, examined them in great detail and recommended a referendum — clearly in the context of the necessity to remove the ban on divorce and to introduce the legal remedy of divorce — the Government are not willing to grasp this issue?
Attitudes are also influenced by what happens in the Oireachtas. It is significant that there has not been a debate in the Dáil on this issue. That is greatly to be regretted. The issue is of fundamental importance, of prime interest, to the public. It has been debated in every hall practically in the country. There have been constant articles and letters in the newspapers, yet it has not been the subject of debate in the Dáil. I do not think the debate in this House has been as affirmative and committed to the recommendations of the joint committee as would have been desirable.
I will refer now to the motion and the amendment. The sequence of events that led to this new Government motion and the amendment being tabled has to be placed on the record. On 1 May 1985 a motion was tabled in the names of Senators Dooge and Ferris simply noting the report of the committee. That was normal procedure in itself, but it did not reflect the importance of the Seanad taking a positive approach in a debate on a report of such importance. A regular formula for this would be to welcome a report, to note certain aspects of it and to seek urgently that it be implemented.
Therefore, the motion last May was a weak one. Later it was used to block the moving of a Private Members' motion on 5 June calling for a Government commitment to the introduction of divorce. That was done for a good reason, in part because on a Government motion the time is not limited. If it were a Private Members' motion, the House would be limited to three hours which would be quite inadequate for a subject of this nature. Following a meeting that evening of Labour Senators, an amendment was tabled in the names of most of the Seanad Labour group to the Government's motion nothing the report of the committee. The amendment called on the Government to hold a referendum on Article 41.3.2º of the Constitution within the lifetime of the Government.
Subsequently, towards the end of June, and totally without consultation or discussion with the Seanad groups, both the Government motion noting the report and the Labour group's amendment were removed from the Order Paper and the motion which we are debating was substituted. This motion welcomes the report, urges the widest possible debate on its recommendations and calls on the Government to consider the holding of a referendum. It is a sort of moderate improvement on "noting" but in the matter of giving leadership on this issue and of influencing public opinion it clearly does not represent the views of the joint committee who called for a referendum, the views of the Labour Members of the House and other Senators who believe that this debate does not take place in a vacuum but is influenced by the whole approach to it. Subsequently, predictably, an amendment was tabled in identical terms to the earlier Labour amendment.
I propose to support that amendment, as do all other members of the Seanad Labour group, because it represents the sense of urgency we have on this issue, the necessity for political leadership and the fact that a debate can only take place in a focused way on the basis of a proposal for legislation. If there is lack of leadership on the issue, then a widespread debate is likely to become a divisive and increasingly polarised debate simply because it will represent the increasingly polarised views of one extreme or the other. Already there has been much debate on this issue. The striking background to the establishment of the joint committee was the amount of public debate that had taken place outside Leinster House on divorce and on marriage law generally. We had occasional debates in this House in recent years on the subject but there has not been anything like the same amount of concern expressed in motions in the Oireachtas as there has been at public meetings throughout Ireland. People's consciousness has been awakened throughout Ireland. People are now well aware of the extent of marriage breakdown and of the concerns that have to be expressed. What is not needed now is another unfocused debate.
Apart from the absence of debate in the Dáil and of discussions in the Cabinet, the approach of the Government to the debate here has not encouraged the belief that there is a commitment even to the other recommendations of the joint committee. It seems ironic that last week the Taoiseach came in for a Report Stage debate on the National Archives Bill — he had a particular interest in that Bill — but no Cabinet member at all has come in for this debate. On the last occasion a number of Ministers of State came in, and Deputy Fennell is here today. That in itself tends to indicate that this is not a matter of high priority at Government level.
That may not be the case. It may not be correct, but that is the impression created. If there is top level Cabinet commitment to accepting the recommendations of the committee then one would expect senior members of the Government to sit in, particularly as the Dáil is not sitting, and to contribute to this debate. I hope we will see more evidence of political leadership because that will determine the quality of the debate and the formation of an informed public opinion on this issue.
Another reason why I find the apparent silence and inaction of the Government so hard to understand is the context of the present discussions on a possible Anglo-Irish agreement. We as a State are seeking to have a consultative role, to have an interest in the welfare of the minority — the Nationalist community in Northern Ireland — and we are doing so because of a long appreciation of the political necessity for some externalising of the situation and because the Nationalist community have suffered down the years from the way in which the laws of the country and the policies there have been dominated by one community. In other words, we are placing great emphasis in the Anglo-Irish discussions on minority rights and minority protection.
Yet, where is the counterbalance within our own borders? Where is our concern here to have regard for minorities? I want to explain carefully what I mean by minorities. In the context of marriage breakdown and divorce I do not mean a religious minority. There is no evidence at all, — indeed, the evidence is all to the contrary — that it is those of a religious minority who seek the right to re-marry by which they mean the right to divorce and re-marry within our State, the Republic. The vast majority of those who seek the remedy of divorce are Catholics. Nonetheless they are a minority in that they are trapped in marriage breakdown, and are unable to help themselves and they require that the majority who are not affected by this problem have regard for their human situation, their human rights in that situation and are prepared to take the necessary steps. Therefore, there is a direct correlation between what we are doing in negotiating with Britain with a view to having a consultative role in Northern Ireland and our situation within our borders.
Again, I do not want to be misunderstood. I am not suggesting that we should in some way decide suddenly to address this problem in order to impress or to win over the Unionists of Northern Ireland. We should do it for the quality of our own society. We should do it because it is right. We should do it because, paradoxically, we are seeking to do it in another jurisdiction. We are seeking to secure minority rights in another jurisdiction and to have a consultative role in enforcement and protection of those minority rights, yet we are denying them within our own boundaries where we have sovereignty and full jurisdiction. At that political level also it is time that we faced our responsibility. It is time we did hard things. We are asking the British Government and both communities in Northern Ireland to face up to very hard issues. We are asking the British Government to do very hard things in securing a fair regime in Northern Ireland. It is time we had the political courage ourselves to face up to hard decisions.
The constitutional crusade was launched in this House some years ago. Would it not be desirable that it get a new lease of life from this debate and that we see the carry through in the most obvious and fundamental area of that constitutional crusade: that the Government accept the considered report and recommendations of this parliamentary committee? We want the Government to look at what was considered by the Joint Committee on Marriage Breakdown and say whether they agree, and if they agree that they are prepared to take the steps recommended.
I have already put on the record the summary of the recommendations on the divorce issue, and I want to consider in detail the arguments which were considered by the committee. However, I indicated that I would return to and emphasise the overall context in which we are discussing this issue. We are discussing a fundamental social question: the institution of marriage in our society and whether couples should have a right to re-marry. That brings into play all kinds of considerations, religious, cultural etc. in assessing the public good. Basically it is a question for elected representatives. It is not a question that anybody else, either a Church or other influence in our society can dictate to elected representatives. I welcomed the approach adopted by the Catholic bishops in this regard when they came to the public hearing of the New Ireland Forum on 9 February 1984. Bishop Cathal Daly made a statement on behalf of the Irish Episcopal Conference delegation at the commencement of the proceedings. I recall one point when applause broke through and interrupted the bishop's contribution. That applause was for the passage which I am about to read out. That passage was delivered with extraordinary commitment and with a passionate belief by Bishop Daly. He said, and I quote from page 2 of the report for that day:
Because a new Ireland could take so many different forms we could scarcely be expected to say what our Christian position would be in reference to this or that specific problem in a united Ireland. What we do here and now declare, and declare with emphasis, is that we would raise our voices to resist any constitutional proposals which might infringe or might imperil the civil and religious rights and liberties cherished by Northern Protestants.
So far as the Catholic Church and questions of public morality are concerned the position of the Church over recent decades has been clear and consistent. We have repeatedly declared that we in no way seek to have the moral teaching of the Catholic Church become the criterion of constitutional change or to have the principles of Catholic faith enshrined in civil law. What we have claimed, and what we must claim, is the right to fulfil our pastoral duty and our pastoral duty is to alert the consciences of Catholics to the moral consequences of any proposed piece of legislation and to the impact of that legislation on the moral quality of life in society while leaving to the legislators and to the electorate their freedom to act in accordance with their consciences.
Therefore, it is the legislators who have the responsibility. It is the legislators who must inform their consciences, who must look at all the considerations and who then must take a decision. Because a decision would require a change in the Constitution, the electorate also would have an opportunity to vote in a referendum. In summary, Bishop Daly was saying that, first the Catholic bishops would champion the civil liberties of Northern Protestants. Subsequently I put to him a question as to why, then, were they not prepared at this stage to champion also the position of the religious minorities in the Republic by looking for changes which would recognise fully their civil liberties in the Republic also? I did not get an answer to that question. Nonetheless the second point was quite clear: it was an authoritative affirmation that the Catholic Church, as well as the other religious denominations, recognises that this issue raises complex social and other considerations and ultimately is a matter for legislators. Therefore, that is where we begin our consideration of the issues raised and the arguments advanced to the joint committee.
At this point I would like to put on record that not only can I understand but, I respect very much those on the joint committee and those in this House who do not find this an easy issue to consider and to conclude on. It is not easy to weigh up the ramifications of any changes in our marriage law which would allow remarriage in our society. It is most important to have as a priority consideration of the vulnerable position and the financial situation of any dependent spouse or any children of a marriage. There are a number of complex and important considerations which I will turn to more specifically in a moment.
However, a parliamentary committee spent 18 month largely focused on examining, taking evidence about and weighing up those considerations. It concluded at the end of that careful analysis and examination that there should be change, that we should take the step of having a referendum. That step had already been recommended in 1967 by the earlier all-party committee, but they had not looked at the matter in the same detail. This committee, who reported in March of this year, considered an enormous amount of evidence in the matter as they were mandated to do. As Senator Bulbulia mentioned the committee got over 700 written submissions and heard a number of representative oral presentations. That evidence has now been published and is available to Members of the House. We are not debating this subject in a vacuum or in abstract terms. We have the benefit of the very careful and meticulous consideration of the Joint Committee on Marriage Breakdown and their recommendation. What we now need is courage and leadership to carry through on that recommendation and to ensure that the legislation to promote the referendum to remove the ban on divorce is introduced.
I turn now to the detailed arguments considered by the committee. Although these have been referred to by other Members, it seems that we must repeat at least in summary form what those arguments were so that Members of the House who were not members of the committee and members of the public more generally will know the considerations that were taken into account, were weighed and that ultimately led that parliamentary committee to decide positively that we should have a referendum to remove the ban on divorce.
First, I want to consider, starting at page 75 of the report of the Joint Committee on Marriage Breakdown, the arguments in favour of divorce. The first of these was that the prohibition of divorce is an injustice to those persons whose marriages have irretrievably broken down and who hav become or wish to become involved in other relationships because they cannot achieve any recognition of their new relationships or an adequate legal definition of their status. There is no legislation if force to provide protection for the parties or their children in those relationships—for example, for maintenance, for succession, in relation to barring orders if there is violence, neglect and so on. The children of such relationships are illegitimate and the parties suffer substantial disadvantages in areas of taxation and in the right to social Welfare benefits.
The first argument put here in favour of divorce recognises the reality for couples who are caught in a situation where basically what the want is not so much the right to divorce as the right to re-marry. They want to affirm the relationship that they are living in; they want to give it respectability, to ensure that if anything happens to go wrong there are legal rights that flow from that relationship. The denial of that must be seen as a very harsh penalty for those couples involved, a very severe pressure on them if they want to marry and to legalise their relationships. A very significant number of couples are in that position. They say it publicly. There are arguments about the statistical figure, but in social terms—we are talking about the social values in our society— a very significant number of couples want to marry and we say "No", absolutely across the board while both are still alive, unless they can get involved in one of the devious practices I was talking about earlier which give them a divorce Irish style. They can carry on and do that and nobody will say anything, but otherwise the answer is "No". That is the first argument, really one of basic justice.
The second argument on page 76 points to the fact that all the minority Churches and religions, with the exception of the Church of the Latter Day Saints, do not favour the retention of the blanket prohibition on divorce in the Constitution and consider the availability of divorce legislation as a basic right, notwithstanding that certain of those Churches as a matter of internal discipline disapprove of divorce. When it gets to that stage, where a committee collect the evidence and the evidence is overwhelming from one minority religious group after another that they favour the removal of the ban on divorce, then how can we say that retaining it is not denominational? How can we say that the prohibition on divorce is not sectarian in terms of continuing in our Constitution since 1937 a denominational view of marriage and the lack of any civil method of dissolving that marriage? There is a Church method of dissolving it which represents the Catholic doctrinal position and which, for that reason. is oppressive of minority rights in this area. We should have great concern about it. We should not do that unless it was absolutely socially necessary. All the evidence of this joint committee is overwhelmingly on the side of it not being socially necessary or desirable.
The third argument put forward in favour of divorce is that the constitutional bag on divorce is and the absence of divorce legislation since 1937 have not prevented marital breakdown from occurring and that the level of marriage breakdown has been increasing. That was accepted among the members of the Joint Committee on Marriage Breakdown. Some of the arguments, which I will come to later, against divorce legislation are really criticisms of all the aspects of marriage breakdown such as the effect on children and the effect on the dependent spouse. All these things are there at the moment, whether we introduce divorce or not. Side by side with that we have to face up to our dishonest attitude towards divorce anyway, where we allow all kinds of half divorces or even in some cases, if people can afford it, full divorces with remarriage in Ireland. The concerns, the social problems, the worries are already there now in every town in Ireland, because no town is immune from an increasing incidence of marriage breakdown.
The next argument in favour of divorce is that the breakdown of a marriage is due to the collapse of the relationship between the parties. The divorce does not cause that collapse but merely affords a facility to give legal recognition to the fact that the marriage has ended while leaving the parties therto free to re-marry.
Debate adjourned.
Sitting suspended at 5.30 p.m. and resumed at 6.30 p.m.