Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Friday, 24 Jan 1986

Vol. 363 No. 3

Report of Joint Committee on Marriage Breakdown: Statements (Resumed).

Mrs. Barnes

Like every Member who has spoken so far on this report, I should also like to record my acknowledgement and gratitude for the time and effort put into it. I would have preferred the committee, as legislators, to have recognised from the submissions they got that divorce seems to be the only legal answer to separation in this country. They did not go all the way in seeing their responsibility for this or the urgency of the problem. The evidence they received suggested that there should be a referendum on divorce but the committee were divided in recommending such a course. However, since the introduction of Deputy Michael O'Leary's Bill and also the Labour Party Bill, the momentum is there and at least we are discussing the problem.

At long last Deputies have to face up to the fact that marriage breakdown exists, that there are separations, second relationships, illegitimacy and feelings of hopelessness among many couples. We also have a problem in regard to Catholic Church recognition of annulments and separations. There is a toleration of bigamous marriages, a feeling that we can continue to break the law as long as it does not impinge on other laws, which of course is a fallacy because as long as laws are broken or ignored all law and order comes into disrepute and legislation is undermined. Until we have the courage to recognise that a referendum must be held and that legislators need to inform and educate the electorate — most of whom are ahead of us anyway — on the need for legal acknowledgement of separations and the death of marriages we can have no respect for ourselves as legislators. I doubt if the Catholic Church can have any respect for itself either considering the anomalous position in which it finds itself. We will not have a healthy, mature or compassionate society until we tackle the problem.

At least the findings of the committee and the debate which has taken place has shown that Deputies realise the problem will not go away. It has also raised many other important issues which were dealt with in the report of the committee. One of the fantasies which we have felt good about was that marriage was an ideal state which protected women and children. Without marriage women did not fulfil their role. Without marriage women really had no dignity, status or importance. Somehow they had failed in the only role that was allowed them. They were lesser people if they did not achieve holy matrimony and the status, protection and happiness that that endowed on them.

From the speeches I heard from all sides of the House it seemed that the primary concern of male Deputies was that women and children would be the victims if divorce was introduced. They ignored two fundamental points. The first is that women and children are victims of broken marriages and separations. They are in a far more vulnerable position and in a far less legally supported position because we do not have divorce legislation. Secondly, there is the traditional thinking that we have only one family unit, a hard-working bread-winning husband who lovingly and protectively looks after his family. We have the picture of a happy, smiling, rosy cheeked mother bringing up her daughter in the kitchen. She tends to allow her son or sons, in whom she has great pride and joy, to engage in all other spheres of activity beyond the kitchen, to engage in the job of breadwinner or provider for the next generation. Always in our advertisements and text books children are happily spaced out — not in the modern understanding of the phrase "spaced out", although that is part of today's reality — but, from a family planning point of view, well spaced, shining, clear-eyed, sure of their place in society.

Either we allowed ourselves or wanted to be conned into thinking that that was the only family unit that existed. Collectively, certainly in a legislative sense, we appeared to believe that that was the only unit that could or should survive in this country, whereas we know there are many family units that do not fit into that happy, narrow little perspective. Yet to date we have failed almost totally to give any support to or acknowledgement of family units outside that narrow, constitutional vision. That concept may have been apt in 1937, although I doubt that it was. Had one checked with women in 1937 I am convinced they would have held a different vision also of the concepts of the demands of marriage on them.

Other family units were established, some flourished — certainly they were not legally acknowledged or supported — while others, unfortunately, did not. We were locked into the belief that our Constitution was so sacred that even if it did not recognise the changing role of women and men in society, even if it did not recognise that there were children outside the concept of the family, as defined in the Constitution — with a capital "F"— all other such families did not deserve the capital "F" because they were not recognised within the Irish constitutional vision of marriage and somehow, therefore, did not exist. When one examines the then roles within marriage it is incredible that a 1937 concept should continue to be imposed on people almost 50 years later. We talk here daily about the tremendous changes that have taken place in the areas of employment, social structures, environmental structures, technology. Yet everybody acknowledges that the greatest change of all that has taken place in human civilisation in the last 50 years happened faster than in perhaps the preceding 500 or 1,000 years. I refer to the whole area of human relationships, the primary unit of society, having been designated as the one that would bring about the common good of society, the fundamental unit within which we would all grow up into mature, responsible adults, members of society — that unit was not allowed to change, develop and flourish.

The concept of the family, based on marriage, on the model of the breadwinner husband and the dependent full time wife as defined in Article 41-1-1º of the Constitution is:

The State recognises the Family as the natural primary and fundamental unit group of Society, and as a moral institution possessing inalienable and imprescriptible rights, antecedent and superior to all positive law.

Subparagraph 2º of that same Article states:

The State, therefore, guarantees to protect the Family in its constitution and authority, as the necessary basis of social order and as indispensable to the welfare of the Nation and the State.

Article 41.2.1º then says:

In particular, the State recognises that by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved.

Subparagraph 2.2º states:

The State shall, therefore, endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home.

I have been so struck by the choice of language in that Article, for instance, the phrase "woman gives to the State"—"woman", singular. In ordinary parlance to address a female as "woman" has a sense of servitude about it, the attitude being: "Woman, what would you know about it?" How often have Irish women heard this type of remark on the part of their partners and colleagues? More than anything else it implies that in the case of all women that is their role, their job, neglecting to describe her role within the home as work. Again to repeat Article 41.2.2 it states:

The State shall, therefore, endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home.

Once again mothering, child rearing and child care are defined as a duty and are not recognised as work, not valued as work, not included in our GNP as work, are not financially or legally acknowledged as work in this country.

On the one hand there are tremendously supportive statements in our Constitution regarding women, their role and status. But when we examine the reality in law up to very recently one found nothing but empty words and mere lip service.

Much of the report of the Joint Committee on Marriage Breakdown relates to support systems for marriage. Some Members question the fact that we should be discussing divorce at all although, as legislators, in reality we all know that that constitutes the end of the line and the moment of reality for all of us. If we are serious about the importance of the family unit in our society we should ensure it is given protection, building in support systems. But behind all the rhetoric, from the Church and State, after the foundation of this State and the drawing up of our Constitution, the reality is that we give next to no support to marriage. It was not until the various women's organisations came together in the early seventies that the truth about our family unit began to emerge. Usually these women's organisations had operated on a voluntary basis, raising funds and operating on shoe strings. Having proved themselves over the years, only then did they receive any Government recognition. Yet many of those organisations were dealing at the most fundamental level with either the protraction or breakdown of marriage.

Not until women came together, financially dependent — our Constitution more or less suggests that that is the only way women should ever be — and without money to set up organisations and to lobby for the protection of women and children against violence, recognition of deserted wives and their children, the status of children born into our society but not deemed to be the same under the law because they had been born outside marriage, did the State even begin to recognise (a) that these categories of people existed and (b) that they should be supported. Women view the Articles in the Constitution pertaining to the family and to them and their children in particular with a certain cyncism.

Allied to the myth of our having only ideal marriages and not recognising anything above or beyond that, there was and is still a tendency to believe that women and children are best protected within marriage, and that belief is evident in the debates in the House. Let us examine that. I want to talk this morning about support systems for marriage. Are we really serious about marriage continuing as viable, attractive and acceptable in our society? In Women and Health, published recently by the Health Education Bureau the research was done by two women, Mary Cullen and Terri Morrissey of the Women's Studies Unit of the Irish Foundation for Human Development. In this publication they try to raise consciousness of the health of women. Contrary to opinions expressed here and elsewhere that marriage is the true, real protection and supportive area for women, it holds out many hazards for them because of our lack of support systems and the present situation. I am not saying that we should not continue to have marriage; I am saying that we should look at it much more honestly and listen to how women feel about it and within it. For instance, single women live longer than married women, yet married men live longer than single men.

Mr. V. Brady

There is something in that.

Mrs. Barnes

We could deduce from that that marriage would seem to be a support and a protection to men that it does not seem to be to women at the moment. Women's health is at risk within marriage. They suffer from a far higher level of depression in marriage than outside it. One of the areas discussed in Women and Health is major occupational illness associated with being a housewife. Other studies, particularly that of Margaret Fine-Davis in Women and Work, indicate that women have better health physically, mentally and emotionally if they work outside the home. The highest level of depression and physical illness is in women who usually are not allowed or do not get an opportunity to work outside the home. Because we have lived with the myth that women would be satisfied with a role as mother and housewife, within the home and that this was the only real role for them we have imposed upon women a role narrower than we would impose on men. Therefore, all their other potential skills and contributions were frustrated and channelled back into depression and even into physical ill-health and unfortunately, because a great number of our medical profession are male they do not perceive that as such. When women went to doctors and clinics with their sense of depression and frustration, on the whole they were prescribed large quantities of tranquillisers, sleeping pills and anti-depressants without any investigation of the fundamental reason why women in the home should feel like that. I hope that is changing.

My comments here this morning may be misconstrued as an attack on marriage. They are intended as an attack on marriage Irish style, on the kind of unit that is written into the Constitution and that people in this House, at least in this debate, seem reluctant to change or even examine to find out why the need for change. I am speaking at length about the effect at present of marriage on women because the question goes even beyond the area of divorce or not divorce. Breakdowns in marriages are not all attributable to the factors I have been talking about but many of them are, and this has not yet been taken seriously by the majority in the medical profession or recognised by most of the people who spoke here in the House today. If we are talking about protecting and supporting marriage, creating units that will endure without failure, without recourse to divorce, we must look seriously at the empty words written into the Constitution with regard to protection and support of marriage, and refute what was put forward here again and again in this debate: that the introduction of divorce legislation here would be the beginning of the breakdown of marriage, the weakening of marriage and putting women and children into a vulnerable position. All these factors are here already, because we have done nothing about this. We have failed to recognise the symptoms. Even when the symptoms became clear to us we failed totally to bring in the protection that we have promised, even within the Constitution.

What support system have we built up for marriage? Again and again, in the submissions made to the Committee on Marriage Breakdown, there has been emphasis on the need for education in mature relationships, in honest relationships between men and women. That entails educating our young people of both sexes together in the same classrooms. We must bring them up in an atmosphere in which they accept one another as people, not in stereotyped roles with regard to the activities and relationships of both men and women. I have heard, inside and outside this House, people who castigate those asking for legislation on divorce here and who demand that our marriages remain indissoluble. Anybody who has spent time within a failed marriage, or in helping, counselling and supporting couples within failed marriages will know that the first reality we must face is the lack of education of men and women in relationships and responsibilities towards one another. That would involve the whole area of sexuality and sex education. The very people who insist on divorce legislation not being allowed in this country are those who would insist — decree if they could — that there should not be sex education in our schools.

One of the basic causes of stress in marriage, from the financial, emotional and women's health points of view, is the lack of family planning. Every couple should have the mature and responsible right to decide how many children to have and when to have them. It is certainly a matter for the couples themselves. We have agonisingly dragged through this House an amendment to a Family Planning Bill. As far back as 1972 a report of a Commission on the Status of Women recommended that there should be a network of family planning centres throughout the country so that everybody, rural and urban, poor and affluent, would equally be given the right of access to education and, above all, medical assistance on family planning and contraceptive needs. The Irish Medical Association on one hand demand that only family doctors deal with family planning and contraceptive advice and, on the other hand, request their members not to reply to a questionnaire with regard to availability of family planning and contraceptive advice centres within our health board regions.

There are communities which lack planning directed towards the needs of women and children. They are the last to be consulted — in fact, they are never consulted. Schools come years after the building of housing estates and are usually on the far side of the motorway, anyway. Child care facilities are almost non-existent. Any that exist are usually for the most urgent and most needy within our community. We have not yet accepted the concept that child care facilities within the community provide a necessary support system for parents in the home. We have not lived up to the promises and aspirations expressed in our Constitution in as far as the protection and acknowledgement of the family unit are concerned. Having failed in all other aspects of the Articles relating to the family, we hold only as sacred and unchangeable that which does not recognise the dissolubility of marriage. All the positive, constructive areas of the Constitution have never been acknowledged but the negative, penal area has been grasped and almost made a sacred, unbreakable code. That is the kind of dishonesty and lack of reality which has left thousands of couples here in their present state, totally outside their own control.

There is also the relationship between Church and State to be considered. If we are talking about a mature, responsible society going into the nineties and towards the year 2000, it is time that both the legislators and the Catholic Church looked seriously at something which has been beneath the surface for years. There has been an uneasy relationship at all times between them because this matter has never been openly and properly defined as it should be. The State and the legislators who will bring about changes in the law have a responsibility to act on behalf of the people regardless of what beliefs they hold. There is a certain moral code and ethos which pervades a society and that is the one which will hold up culturally. I question with the utmost sincerity, why a Church, based on such fundamental and long held beliefs as the Catholic Church claims, would feel that Irish Catholics would so fail in their beliefs, integrity and moral standing that they need to be protected by State law. Is it because of a lack of confidence in the Church's teaching, or a refusal to acknowledge that there are other people within this State with different beliefs and aspirations, that they do not see the need for Church and State to co-exist peacefully, with due acknowledgment of each other but without inpinging on each other?

I would point out to the Catholic Church, that the very State freedom for which I am asking is the one which ultimately supports and defends the freedom of Churches and their beliefs in a democratic state. The pressure that a Church or a group might attempt to impose on society could backlash and bring about a rigidity of political opinion which in turn would deny them their freedom. I do not think we will display maturity or morality to our people while we deny them their moral and civil rights. The Churches will not come of age fully until they accept that they will flourish only when they allow moral freedom to their members.

In this discussion we must consider the fear some people would have and which others would try to engender in them, that if divorce was allowed people would enter marriage easily, almost with a sense of frivolity. It must be pointed out that marriage is a life-long commitment to love and to care for a partner, to support and to get support from that partner during the lifetime of each. There is the fear that if we had divorce legislation the seriousness of the lifelong contract would be diminished. However, we must remember that in marriage as in all other contracts breach of contract involves severe penalty and that marriage is the most serious contract people undertake.

As other Deputies have said, people suggest that the presence of divorce would make people regard marriage more lightly because they could always fall back on the luxury of divorce. People think that if we were to have divorce here there would be a queue of people to get divorces. They sense that divorce would be forced on them if there were differences between the partners. We must impress on our people that there are no grounds for these fears. We are inclined to accept statistics in the US where society's culture is different from ours. Those figures are quoted to us easily but they hold no reality for us in Ireland with our different culture and religious background. In Northern Ireland where they have divorce the figures for marriage breakdown are similar to ours. Are we suggesting that because of the existence of divorce in Northern Ireland marriages there lack the same moral integrity as ours?

I have tried to show that we must have honesty and demonstrate that we are adults in the debate on divorce. We have been elected to serve all the people in our society. Above all, we must grow up in this respect and have confidence in ourselves. I do not want us to be hemmed in with laws that would discriminate unjustly and undemocratically against some of our people. We owe it to those who elected us to provide a referendum for them to give them a voice in this matter. We have not got the right to keep such a referendum from our people which would enable us to bring in legislation which, after all, would only give to our people the freedom and the democratic right to choose. If we deny society here those rights we can no longer regard ourselves as responsible legislators. I hope that this discussion will expose the fantasies and hypocrisy in regard to this. We are no better, and I hope no worse, than others in society. We must discard hypocrisy in this regard. As I have said, we are no better than many of the countries which have divorce.

Mr. V. Brady

I should first of all like to join with other Members in paying tribute to the members of the Joint Committee on Marriage Breakdown for their major contribution to this very detailed report on marriage breakdown. A lot of work and a great number of hours were spent by the Deputies and Senators in hearing evidence, sifting through various submissions and giving careful consideration to all aspects of the brief handed to them by the Oireachtas. The committee, as comprised, represented all parties in the House and the Members nominated by Fianna Fáil could be termed to represent points of view which would take into account all shades of opinion.

I think, however, that, unfortunately, the terms of reference of the committee were inclined to be misrepresented by and large in so far as the media coverage was inclined to concentrate, almost exclusively, on aspects of evidence and discussions relating only to the divorce issue. Various members, unfortunately were lined up as being pro and anti divorce and, that was a great pity because, whilst the question of the feasibility of deleting Article 41 of the Constitution in favour of divorce was, of course, submitted in evidence, it should not be lost sight of that this committee received their terms of reference to investigate marriage breakdown and to consider the protection of marriage and of family life and also to examine the problems which follow the breakdown of marriage.

The report deals with many aspects of marriage by way of education, counselling, mediation, the age of marriage, the laws of nullity and marriage — as well as separation — and I would like to think that many useful points have emerged from this report which will have nothing whatever to do with divorce but quite to the contrary could be used very usefully to strengthen and protect the environment which, in itself, would assist better marriages.

It has been said by a number of speakers that marriage between two persons is a very private and personal thing. It is indeed very personal and private from certain viewpoints but it is also a very public thing in so far as the relationship of marriage, or married couples, to the make-up of the State is concerned.

The State, obviously, has a major contribution to play and nobody will deny it has a role in helping to protect marriage and family life in many different ways. The committee in their report expressed their consciousness of the disturbing economic and social pressures which add to the inter-personal pressures which can arise in the course of a marriage.

Obviously, the committee, or indeed anybody for that matter, did not have the resources to go into a very detailed examination of the many different types of pressures that affect married couples and society and I do not believe either that if one were to go into these studies in an in-depth way very much would be learned which would be helpful in ascertaining the what's and the why's of the many hundreds of different problems that can develop between human beings.

Irrespective of the approach one might take towards trying to establish why so many marriages seem to go wrong it would be virtually impossible to come to any uniform opinion which would give an overall reason for the difficulties that arise between partners in marriage.

Unfortunately, too many young couples enter into marriage without really knowing too much about the responsibilities that they are undertaking. The committee drew attention to the absence of a cohesive and comprehensive educational programme designed to prepare people for marriage within the present educational system and it is very obvious that this is one area that has been sadly neglected for too long. Young people fall in love and, in their immaturity, and, indeed. I might also say in their happiness, decide to progress towards marriage without having any real understanding, or preparation, for what lies ahead. That is not to say, however, that many of those marriages have not turned out to be very happy and long relationships. But we all know from our own experience of the many young couples who marry in their immaturity without having any proper base, which will be required when the going gets tough, for a happy and lasting marriage.

Again, when we talk about happiness, marriage is not always a life of bliss and every happily married couple have to contend with many problems during their lifetimes which can cause very heavy strains and pressures on their relationships and, indeed, very often go to the very brink before falling back into a happily married state once again.

That is an experience that young people entering marriage should be aware of and, unfortunately, in many countries in western Europe where divorce is permissible thousands of couples have found themselves in that type of situation and have, naturally, opted for divorce in their darkest moments because it happened to be available to them. That argument against divorce has been put forward very eloquently by many people on that basis and they have felt that if divorce was easily available in Ireland, as it is in the United States, in England and in other European countries, many young couples who are having difficulties, as inevitably all couples will have, will take that option instead of being patient and working on the relationship with their partner as has been the case up to now in Ireland for a great many couples.

I am not, of course, so blind as to say that there are not problems. We all know that there are problems and there are serious problems. There are many problems that will not be solved within the existing framework but that is not to say either that the solution to those problems should be the recipe for the whole community.

The report came out very strongly on the need to protect marriage and the family and the overriding factor that should be in the minds of all legislators is the family unit and the contribution the family unit has made, and, hopefully, will continue to make, to the fabric of our society. The 1937 Constitution clearly recognised this and included an Article which set down very clearly the lines on which the well-being of the family would be guaranteed. Whilst society has changed very much since — it has changed out of recognition since 1937 — that philosophy remains as relevant today as it was back in 1937.

In civilised society down through the years the family has contributed more to the development of their respective countries. That contribution which in many cases has not been recognised, is more than anybody can ever imagine. The philosophy of a happy, caring society and community is at all times based on the family unit and it is absolutely essential that Governments and legislators should first of all consider and investigate every possible avenue to creating conditions that will contribute to that type of family stability before even considering changes that would obviously undermine that stability mentally as well as physically.

The stability of families creates a stable society. The whole issue of marriage breakdown, and its consequences, is, obviously, a very serious issue — serious, firstly, for the partners involved and their respective children, if any — distressing in many respects for families of both partners and indeed in Ireland often extremely embarrassing for their friends. This underlines, very much, that major decisions cannot be made too easily, or, indeed, too quickly.

The difficulties that confront legislators on an issue like this are reflected very much in the report from the committee. In the final analysis agreement could not be reached on the major issue despite the fact that the members of the committee were studying the whole area of marriage breakdown for nearly two years and during that time were granted four extensions before finalising their report. It was very obvious that the committee were faced with very fundamental issues and also had to deal with sifting through evidence obtained from different interests, or pressure groups, which, to say the least, was very often conflicting.

The point I am making is that the committee were faced with a very difficult task and it was, therefore, I believe, inopportune of the Taoiseach, and, indeed, the Tánaiste, to make a number of statements during the lifetime of that committee which gave the impression, intentional or otherwise, of pre-empting the work of the committee.

It will be recalled that the Taoiseach, in October 1983 shortly after the committee had commenced their work, in a television interview said that he had already decided to hold a referendum to remove the ban on divorce and subsequently he made further statements of a similar nature.

The committee have already been congratulated on a number of fronts for giving so much of their time, very often at weekends, to bring this report to the House and indeed there are many excellent recommendations contained within the report which were fully agreed upon.

There should have been a firm commitment from the Government to implement the non-controversial, and positive, agreed recommendations contained in the report and the resources to implement those recommendations should also be provided without delay.

This is probably the most comprehensive study of marriage and the family to come before the House and goes into many of the problems in considerable detail. The report puts forward many agreed solutions to current difficulties in marriage but has stopped short of framing a possible referendum or even alternative referenda for consideration by the Oireachtas.

The House has now been discussing this report for the best part of five days but it is very obvious from this debate that Deputies, while speaking with great honesty and sincerity, are still very uncertain as to how the major problem of marital breakdown should be handled. This is very obviously a matter for consideration by the Government of the day and if legislation is to be introduced to put the referendum to the people, then that is the responsibility of the Government.

It is now ten months since the committee completed their work and it is very obvious that the Government have not made any decision, despite the many commitments entered into by both Fine Gael and Labour since they came into Government. It is grossly unfair and it is wrong of the Taoiseach and his Ministers to put out statements from time to time about divorce which, to me, appear to be designed to develop a climate of opinion which favours divorce at any cost and without question.

Figures have been thrown about stating that over 70,000 marriages are broken and the implication also coming from the pressure groups is that all of those parties concerned want divorce. The report of the committee has made it clear that it is absolutely impossible to estimate the number of broken marriages, as statistics have not been kept and the figures that have been given are pure guesswork or estimates.

The Government must also be very much aware that any referendum which paves the way for the introduction of divorce involves not just the removal of the constitutional ban but also the removal of many of the other fundamental protections for the family as enshrined in the Constitution. The Constitution very clearly protects the institution of marriage and the family unit and the Taoiseach must therefore accept that he was being irresponsible when he issued the statements I have referred to about divorce. He is being false, misleading and perhaps mischievous, although I would hope not, on such a serious issue. The Taoiseach has now had this report on his desk for ten months and if he feels strongly, as he has claimed on numerous occasions, then let him make his decision and inform the House and the nation accordingly.

Article 41 of the Constitution is far too valuable and too important to be undermined without any positive, or definite decisions being made. If the Taoiseach and his Government wish to change the Constitution they should then come into this House and inform the House and the nation of the proposals they have in mind, as the time for talking has now passed. They cannot have it both ways. The report is in their possession and the people are sick and tired of having the whole issue of marriage breakdown and divorce being used for political purposes, with no positive action on many of the recommendations in the report.

The question that arises immediately is why the Government are not going ahead with the excellent proposals that are contained in the report by all-party agreement. There is no controversy in relation to many of the recommendations. They were discussed in depth and there was unanimous agreement on numerous recommendations.

The members of the committee have every right to feel very disappointed that the positive proposals that are not controversial have not been proceeded with, as many of those proposals dealt very positively with causes leading to marriage breakdown, and could only be very beneficial and of great assistance to the family unit if proceeded with.

One of these proposals referred to the age for marriage and recommended that it be increased from 16 years to 18 years old with very limited, stated, exceptions. Nobody will disagree with that proposal and very obviously if implemented it would mean that immature young children — and that is what they can often be at 16 or 17 years of age — would have wait that while longer until they matured somewhat more on reaching the age of 18.

Other proposals referred to legal changes which would also be helpful and I believe that it is unfortunate that the Government did not agree to accept these recommendations immediately on presentation of the report.

I must confess that I have not come across, or experienced, the huge demand that is alleged to be there for divorce. An attempt was made to make this issue controversial during the last election and, if anything, I came across the reverse point of view where many people and, I might add, young married couples expressed very strongly their views that divorce would not solve the problems that are there. Various polls have appeared from time to time and I think that once again one is entitled to question the validity of these polls and the methods applied in taking them.

Fianna Fáil have a duty and a responsibility to ensure that the Government will not be rushed into changing the whole fabric of society. The Government must never forget that they have an obligation to legislate for everybody, for all the people and not merely for those who are loudest in fighting for their own particular corner — in other words, the stronger pressure group, even though very much in a minority.

We all accept that there is a problem which appears to be developing. Unfortunately, however, we do not know for sure the extent of that problem because of the absence of statistical information on the numbers affected by marriage breakdown.

We also accept that we must try to find a solution to that problem but in doing so must be very certain that we are not undermining, or damaging, in any way society in general. Divorce as we know it in other countries has not solved problems. It may be a solution to some individual problems but in general it has been seen to be a contributing factor in juvenile problems, personality disorders, psychological and nervous disorders and many other related problems. It has been said that young children will not be affected too much by a break up of parents but this has not been proved. I believe that, to the contrary, research has proved that many cases of difficulties affecting children of divorced parents have occurred in the United States, and figures have been published to that effect. I know figures can be used to prove anything. This is the dilemma we are caught in. This shows the extent of the problem facing us as legislators.

The people will ultimately have to decide on this issue and it will be the responsibility of the Government if it is decided to hold a referendum to include a number of choices. One of these choices should ask the people if they wish to change the existing constitutional ban on divorce. I believe the present Government have gone on far too much for too long about this issue whilst other more important and serious problems continue to grow in our midst. Massive unemployment, rising crime, severe taxation, lowering of living standards — all of these factors contribute to pressures and strains within the homes and can and do cause serious divisions within families.

Little or no encouragement has been given by this Government to the family. The continuous erosion of children's allowances and tax allowances for children convey the impression that family life is not considered a very high priority at the present time. In these modern times of difficulties and pressures we should be doing everything possible to improve the conditions, the living standards and the facilities available to the family unit. We should give the family unit every encouragement.

As the law stands at present marriages can in some circumstances be annulled. These laws could be up-dated to make access to annulments easier. Obviously, of course, such changes would affect only a small number of people but it would nevertheless be an indication of the genuine commitment to tackle the problem of marital breakdown and, goodness knows, we need a sign of that.

The House has now had an opportunity to study this whole issue and its implications. There is also a great onus of responsibility on legislators to look at the experiences of other countries who amended their laws to introduce divorce to solve marital problems. As I indicated previously, there is a view in many of those countries now that the legislation went too far and created a worse and more serious problem than was there previously.

We would be well advised to learn from their experiences and their mistakes. We should not allow ourselves, nevertheless, to be rushed into any solution merely because it might appear at that time to solve a particular problem that is there. None of us, if we are strictly honest, could claim to know what the solution might be.

In the final analysis it is the responsibility of the Government and it is vitally important that the Government should act responsibly and should not be tempted to seek political opportunism by making statements of an irresponsible nature without showing any sign of their intention to pursue a solution to the problem along those particular lines.

It is ironical that Government Ministers and backbenchers have been quick to criticise Fianna Fáil for their approach to this issue. As far as we are concerned, we have maintained a responsible approach knowing that we are dealing with a very delicate and important issue. We do not have our heads in the stand, as some people might suggest, and it will be our intention to continue to pursue that very responsible approach of looking at the whole issue from every possible angle so that every individual, every family and society in general will obtain the best possible protection under our Constitution. That is their right.

There is an obligation on legislators to ensure that whatever changes are made, whatever legislation might be introduced, will be seen to be for the benefit of the community and not merely for the benefit of some individuals because the fabric of our society has been very important and has made a major contribution to the country as a whole. Many speakers have been very quick to condemn our existing laws and to say that we have our heads in the sand that we are backward as far as the laws on marriage are concerned, but over the years Ireland has held marriage in very high esteem and many countries looked at us enviously.

We all know there are serious and growing problems in this area but there are many ways to tackle them. We should not be looking only in one direction feeling that divorce — full stop — will solve all those problems. It will not because it has not solved problems in other countries. We must seek a solution without creating greater problems. I am sure that is what we all want but we must approach this slowly because it is possible to make rash decisions if they are made in a hurry. The debate in this House has shown how difficult is the problem facing legislators, but we all have a common interest to ensure that whatever the solution might be, it will be taken in the interests of all the people and for the good of the country.

Mr. J. Doyle

I welcome the report of the Joint Committee on Marriage Breakdown and I compliment the chairman and members of the committee on the production of an excellent report. I have the privilege of sharing a room in here with a member of that committee and I am only too well aware of the enormous amount of work, time and energy spent by members of the committee in preparing this excellent report.

The report is a fair comment on certain aspects of social life in Ireland in the mid-eighties. Marital breakdown is a very interesting topic when one examines it and the ability of the law to respond to it. There are many things in Irish society about which people do not speak but which are real in terms of their impact on the lives of our people. Among these are mental illenss, child abuse, compulsive gambling, to a certain degree alcoholism, and marital breakdown itself. In the Irish personality there is an unfortunate inhibition to speak on matters about which there is not a great deal of public discussion and it follows that a number of people are left in the very uncomfortable situation of having to suffer quietly and alone problems that affect their personal lives.

The committee, by their report, have brought the problem of marital breakdown into the open and I welcome public discussion in this area. It is my opinion that chapter 3, "The Protection of Marriage and Family Life" is the most important chapter in the report. Chapter 3, section 1.3 says

The Committee is aware that some of the problems which give rise to the breakdown of marriage are present before marriage. The Committee stresses the need for an educational process to reduce the element of uncertainty so as to promote awareness, reflection and mature consideration by all parties.

As well as reading the report I have examined the minutes of evidence taken by the joint committee in regard to 24 oral submissions. Almost every group interviewed by the committee stated that they were not satisfied with the education and preparation for marriage. It is my belief that preparation for marriage should begin at a very early stage. Dr. Jack Dominion in his submission stated:

It is my image that prevention of marital breakdown starts in the family. I would like to see the family as being the model. In regard to schools I have said, again and again, that in addition to the three Rs, I want a fourth R which stands for relationship, to be an essential part of education in schools. We are doing research at the moment. I am not saying that you can teach boys and girls about marriage ... but you can teach them about personal relationships, about trust, about communications, about affection and about understanding. I would like to see that which is the infrastructure of marriage being an essential part of education.

It is interesting to note that Dr. Jack Dominion sees first of all that the prevention of marital breakdown starts in the family. Part of the problem in Irish society today is that parents — I am speaking now of very happy parents — actually hide from their children their own expression of affection for each other. It is very important for the personality of the growing child that he or she should witness the simple signs of affection expressed between husband and wife so that when that child grows up he or she will be able to accept members of the opposite sex with the care, love and affection shown by the parents towards each other. The quality of the relationship in marriage between husband and wife is of crucial significance for the healthy personal growth of their children and it contributes positively to the way people relate to one another and to society at large.

While our school programmes prepare people for life and teach them to be very efficient in many subjects, nevertheless our young people often leave school with no training in personal relationships. It is most important that we train young people in personal relationships, and that we train them about trust, communication, affection and understanding. It saddens me very much that young people are so irresponsible in their personal relationships with each other. What they often lack is affection and understanding. If they were encouraged to understand these important principles at school they would be better prepared for a happier life afterwards.

The committee drew attention to the absence of cohesive and comprehensive educational programmes designed to prepare people for marriage within the present educational system. I agree very much with what the joint committee said in that regard. Before people enter into the contract of marriage the State should be satisfied that they have had the opportunity to get to know one another, of developing an awareness of one another and of knowing what marriage is all about. I have been concerned for a long time about the lack of preparation and training for marriage. The committee recognised the role played by Churches, schools and voluntary groups in this area but up to now the State has had no role in preparing people for marriage. It could be said that marriage is the most important contract a person will enter into in their lifetime. Nevertheless, it is probably the easiest contract to enter into.

Every major study in the past 30 years and all official statistics have found that the age and marriage is associated with success, with a critical cut-off point of about 18 or 19 years. Marriage under this age runs a considerably higher risk of breaking down. According to Dr. Jack Dominion, a correlation between young marriages, pre-marital pregnancy and marriage breakdown has been found in most western countries. In our own society pre-marital pregnancy is a disastrous way to approach marriage. Young people in this situation should only enter into marriage after a long period of personal reflection and counselling. They also have a very romantic view of marriage and do not fully accept or understand the responsibilities involved. Sometimes they are prepared to spend large sums of money on engagement rings, wedding receptions and so on without any provision for living accommodation after their marriage. They often live with in-laws in overcrowded situations and this is another disastrous start for marriage.

Recently I had two cases at my advice centre where young people were seeking local authority accommodation. They were refused because they could obtain accommodation from their own joint incomes. When I told them about the decision of the local authority they told me they had loans to repay. I knew they had not paid a deposit on a home and I asked them what kind of loans were involved. They explained they had to repay substantial loans which they had taken out for their wedding reception and they were paying back a major part of their joint incomes to meet the repayments. Such a situation puts added stress and strain on young people when they get married and that is very unfortunate.

I am pleased to note that the report recommends that there should be pre-marriage counselling for young couples. This service should be personal. The committee recommended that staff should be specially recruited and trained in counselling skills. In order to make this more readily available, the State should give financial assistance to the voluntary bodies who are at present providing guidance in their pre-marriage courses.

The early years of marriage can be the most fragile years and support has to be given at this stage. In many cases young people entering marriage have been used to a certain lifestyle. In most cases they spend most of their salaries on themselves but in a marriage commitment they find their whole social life has changed. Some people find it very difficult to adapt to this. Some try to keep up the lifestyle they were used to before marriage but often this is not financially possible and it can lead to certain social problems. For instance, if a person has an immature personality, the responsibility of marriage will have certain side-effects. Some people in that situation will try to escape from the responsibilities of marriage through alcoholism, gambling and drugs.

There is another problem which relates more to urban areas than to rural areas, mainly, that people often feel they are not part of the community. There is a great sense in their lives of isolation and loneliness and if their talents have not had an opportunity to develop fully and if the people have not had a chance of personal development there is a lack of confidence. Where there is a lack of confidence it is very easy to become threatened, defensive and negative. This can lead to a sense of frustration and if this frustration enters a marriage it will eventually lead to the fragmentation and dissolution of that marriage.

Some people feel very inadequate before marriage. They may also have the feeling of not having power to do anything effective in their lives and not having an outlet for creative activity. This drives people in on themselves and, strange as it may seem, often people with this type of personality are attracted towards one another and feel they can overcome their inferiority complex in marriage. Sad to say, in most cases it does not work out that way.

There is also the unique but not unknown situation where people's personality suddenly changes after marriage. I know of one instance where a couple were very caring and loving towards each other before marriage but immediately after marriage the husband become extremely jealous to the extent that he would not let his wife go out on her own. They are just some of the problems that can lead to marital breakdown. If a marital relationship is to be viable it is necessary that both spouses should have reached a sufficient degree of emotional dependence, trust, self-acceptance, an ability to receive and to give themselves to each other and to show no excessive anxiety or aggressions.

The only criticism I have to make of the report is that it lacks the statistical information which is required. I think that chapter 6 in the report is probably the weakest chapter.

Under chapter 7, which deals with legal remedies, I want to spend some time on matter relating to the law of nullity and divorce. The law of nullity of marriage is concerned with the circumstances in which a marriage will be invalid according to the law of the State. It is not concerned with such questions as divorce, which is the legal termination of an existing valid marriage, or legal separations, which are also concerned with valid marriages.

Nullity of marriage focuses on the state of affairs prevailing at the time the marriage is entered into and thus cannot be the answer to all the problems that bring about marital breakdown. Even in legal systems where there is a divorce jurisdiction, nullity procedures are also part of the law because of the essential difference between the two. The present law of nullity of marriage is based to a large extent on the principles applied by the Ecclesiastical Courts of the Church of Ireland before 1871. In 1870 after the Church of Ireland was disestablished jurisdiction on marital matters was transferred to the civil courts. Provision is found in section 13 of the Matrimonial Causes of Marriage Law (Amendment) Act, 1870. Civil courts have regard to this provision but only in a limited form.

The majority Church in this country has also been issuing decrees of nullity but due to the fact that their theology of marriage is a developing theology, they have over the years taken into account the recent advances in psychiatry and psychology. The civil courts have been coming round to this point of view but very slowly. Justice Henchy said recently in a judgement that the grounds for nulity were far too limited. In the past the Catholic Church has been accused — and, I believe, very unfairly accused — of using nullity as divorce under another name. The Law Reform Commission say in Chapter 7, page 89 of their report on nullity of marriage:

In our deliberations we have not proceeded on the basis that the State law of nullity should give legal recognition to the decrees of the ecclesiastical courts of the Catholic Church. If such a change were to be made it would, in our view, be a matter for political rather than legal determination. It is, however, worth nothing that under existing State Law, especially in the light of more recent developments, grounds for annulment in their scope, if not their classification, differ far less radically from those recognised by the ecclesiastical courts of the Roman Catholic Church than is perhaps generally appreciated. It seems to us there has been little public perception of these developments and that on this account much of the public discussion of the diversion between the two legal systems is to an extent out of focus.

In their report the Law Reform Commission make 62 recommendations which would have the effect of extending the grounds for nullity in the civil laws of this country. It is worth noting that many of the submissions made to the Committee on Marriage Breakdown did recommend that the law in relation to nullity be updated.

In chapter 7, paragraph 8, the committee deal solely with the question of divorce. It is important to distinguish between the two different systems of divorce. The first is the older system generally known as fault divorce. This provides for divorce in cases of serious matrimonial misconduct such as adultery or cruelty. The second system is generally referred to as no fault divorce or divorce based on the breakdown of marriage. Under no fault divorce where marriage has irretrievably broken down, either spouse would be entitled to a divorce without any consideration being given to the conduct of the parties. Under the no fault system a divorce will be granted not only when both spouses wish but also where one of the spouses does not want to be divorced. No fault divorce based on marital breakdown has swept the world in little over ten years. From being relatively unknown ten years ago in Western Europe and North America it has now become the norm. A brief look at other countries shows that in England no fault divorce was introduced in the Divorce Reform Act, 1969, which enables a spouse to obtain a divorce against the wishes of the partner after five year's separation. The Act also provides for divorce after two year's separation where both spouses consent to divorce.

A similar system of divorce was introduced in Scotland in 1976 and in Northern Ireland in 1978. The Minister of State at the Department of Labour, when speaking in this debate, said it was unfair to examine divorce procedures in countries that had nothing in common with Ireland. For that reason, I am going to say a word about the situation that exists in Portugal, Italy and Spain. In Portugal, fault divorce has existed since 1910. In 1977 the grounds for divorce were extended. The fault grounds were retained but divorce may also be obtained on the basis of six year's separation or where the spouses have been separated by a court order for two years. In Italy divorce has been obtainable since 1980. Grounds for divorce include a combination of fault and no fault principle. The most important ground, practically speaking, is a no fault ground which permits divorce after separation varying from five to seven years depending on whether the divorce is consentual or is sought by one spouse against the wishes of the other. In Spain, legislation providing for no fault divorce was enacted in 1981. A divorce may be obtained there after a period of separation of one year where both spouses consent to a divorce and after five year's separation where one of the spouses does not wish to be divorced.

As I said earlier, the law in Northern Ireland was changed from marital offence to no fault divorce. Prior to the change in 1978 there were 596 divorce decrees. In 1980 divorce decrees amounted to 912. In 1981 there were 1,355 divorce decrees; in 1982 the number was 1,471, while in 1983 the number was 1,655. There was a big increase between 1978 and 1980 and this has been accelerating.

The universal trend in legislation is for the period of separation to be reduced progressively. A more radical trend is to regard the legal concept of marriage as redundant and to seek its abolition. All these trends forcibly confirm the statement of Professor Henry Finlay, a leading proponent of no fault divorce. He has stated:

This, then, is the dilemma of our society. You either have to be restrictive or you can be permissive but you cannot be both at the same time and, having once started to be permissive, you are committed to being increasingly permissive. The progress is a cumulative one.

It is stated in chapter 7, page 82, of the report that women and children suffer financial hardships as a result of the introduction of divorce. The evidence from countries which have adopted divorce shows that the inevitable pressure is for the maintenance rights of divorced women to be limited. Many women who work in the home are likely to be the primary casualties of divorce, as they are in other countries. Attempts have been made to defend divorce on the basis that it is consistent with the principle of women's liberation but experience in most countries shows that changes in divorce have been introduced without the changes necessary to protect women against hardship. The result is that many divorced women get the worst of both worlds.

We must take into account also the experience of children under divorce. In jurisdictions where divorce is available it has proved no panacea for children. Contrary to what was prophesised by proponents of liberal divorce, courts granting divorces have paid only little attention to the interests of children. Divorce can have alarming implications also in relation to child maintenance. In a report published in April, 1981, entitled "Maintenance, Putting Children First", the National Council for One Parent Families in England stated that in making decisions about the upbringing of a child the court must regard the welfare of a child as a first and paramount, that consideration has never been expressly applied to the question of maintenance as opposed to custody or access and that moreover it is quite clear that the courts do not put the children's interest first when deciding property and ordering maintenance on divorce.

But there is a far more important aspect of divorce as it affects children that has been given little attention and that is the psychological effect that divorce has on children. In this area the most comprehensive research has been carried out by Wallerstein and Kelly in a book entitled Surviving the Break-up published in 1980. They examined in depth the effects of divorce on 60 families over a period of five years concentrating on the experience of children. In their report they clearly demonstrate that children actually prefer an unhappy marriage to their parents' divorce. One child interviewed stated that divorce was like a “bolt of lightning that struck him when he was not even aware of the existence of a storm”. The authors in analysing the child's attitude to divorce stated that “children and adolescents alike experience a heightened sense of their own vulnerability”. They confronted a world which suddenly appeared to have become less reliable, less predictable and less likely in their view to provide for their needs and expectations. Some were realistic, others were not. The specific content of the worry varied with age, child and family, but the anxiety itself was a widespread phenomena and appeared as the central response. The departure of the father from the household is an extraordinary event, and especially for the younger ones, the departure is terrifying.

Wallerstein and Kelly also demonstrate that at a time of divorce a child feels rejected. Children, they state, experienced a parent's departure from home as indicative of a diminished interest in them. The interruption in their care seemed a further rejection. Young children, particularly, where unable to understand one parent's departure from the other as different from leaving them. As a result, over half the children suffered intensely from feelings of rejection by one or both parents during the critical time.

I want to turn now for a moment to another important aspect of the debate about the effects of divorce on children which has so far received little attention. This concerns the relationship between children and step-parents after divorce. Reconstituted families are often beset with jealousies and conflicts of loyalty not found in traditional families. Sometimes children who resent the experience of divorce either cannot adapt to the new family or try to tear it apart and many husbands and wives carry into their second marriage the attitudes and behaviour that ruptured their first. There is also the evidence that frequently children feel threatened by the decision of their parent to bring a new partner into the family leading to the unfortunate dilemma for the parent as to whether to marry if the child says it would make him or her unhappy. Indeed, I have experienced this in my own lifetime. My father died when I was six years of age and my main worry was that my mother might remarry because I could not accept or understand anybody taking the place of my late father. There is now a book available in the Library of this House called How it feels when parents divorce by Jill Krementz. I would encourage Members to read this book because it tells in the children's simple words their own reaction to their parents' divorce and I found at times the book to be heartrending. Jill Krementz says that people who get divorced want to think they are doing the best for their children; actually they are doing the best thing for themselves. They simply do not want to deal with the issue of the children because they feel guilty.

I would like to turn now for a moment to the effect this would have on the stability of marriage. It is very difficult to determine precisely the effect of divorce legislation on marital stability. Very few studies have been made in this area but the ones available show that if divorce is available it is likely to have some destabilising effect on marriage. Of course there are other factors that have an important effect on marital stability such as pre-marital pregnancy and religious differences. Age and educational achievements play an important role. No one would be so naive as to believe that complete marital stability would be ensured by prohibiting divorce. Equally no one believes that divorce law is the only cause of marital breakdown, but if divorce legislation leads to the breakdown of some marriages that would otherwise have succeeded this is a most serious consequence to which great weight should quite clearly be attached.

In spite of the unpalatable consequences of divorce it can be argued that the absence of divorce in society creates its own hardships and injustices. In a number of oral submissions made to the committee it is argued that under the existing position where divorce is not permitted at present, a woman whose marriage has failed and who enters into a second union is deprived of the opportunity to obtain legal enforceable rights of maintenance against her new partner. The absence of divorce can thus be regarded as working against the financial interest of a woman placed in such circumstances. Although it is true that divorce could result in greater financial security for some women, it is also the case that where the new partners have already been married, this greater financial security could be gained at the expense of another woman, the former wife of the new found husband.

Other views put forward in favour of divorce were that the prohibition of divorce is an injustice to those persons whose marriage has irretrievably broken down and who become involved in other relationships or wish to become involved in other relationships. They feel it to be such an injustice because they cannot achieve any recognition of their new relationships or adequate legal definition of their status. There is no legislation in force to provide protection for parties to and the children of such a relationship. The children of such a relationship are illegitimate and the parties suffer substantial disadvantages in such areas as taxation and the right to social benefits. It was the view of a submission made by the Irish Association of Social Workers that marriages should be supported through all their stages as active social relationships but only as they are capable of being so. Failure to accept that the parties to a marriage which has broken down irretrievably have the right to divorce and remarry can cause hardship. This failure confers an uncertain status on new relationships arising after marital breakdown. It also leaves unprotected the interests of couples and their children with regard to maintenance security.

I am deeply concerned that the media comment on the problem of marital breakdown has concentrated solely on the question of divorce. To the vast majority of persons actually involved in a marital breakdown situation, the question of divorce is not an immediate concern. It is my view that the current debate should deal with the type of support to be given to couples in a marital breakdown situation and particularly with the nature of structures of counselling and mediation services.

The report of the joint committee in chapter 8 deals very adequately with the question of mediation. Many of the submissions made to the committee paid particular attention to the Bristol Court Family Conciliation Service and I myself have a special interest in the counselling and mediation services introduced under the 1980 Family Proceedings Act in New Zealand. I believe strongly that in Ireland we should not be bound by what others have done in this area but that we should take what is best from their experience and apply it to our own particular circumstances. Mediation often helps to avoid the bitterness which is often engendered by legal proceedings and it can also reduce the expense, delay and costs involved for persons whose marriages have broken down. Mediation also can provide a degree of support which can result in the parties modifying their view of the dispute and what they see as fair. It can also lead to a situation of more give and take between husband and wife and, of course, most important of all, mediation can alert parents to the fears and needs of their children in a situation of breakdown. Appropriate action and reassurance by their parents can greatly reduce the trauma of breakdown for children.

I am concerned about the social impact of divorce on our country and I would like to have the case argued on its merits. The report of the Joint Committee on Marriage Breakdown has opened that debate and I would sincerely hope that such a debate would be sufficiently enlightening and that the information would be sufficiently up to date to enable the public to come to a rational decision on what is best for the common good. I would hate to see this issue become a political matter and in the end become a political football. What has frightened me in the past, in what we call a Christian society, is the lack of charity that we have shown towards each other in these debates. For my part, such terms as "adultery is legalised divorce" will have no place and I would appeal to everyone not to use emotive terms of that nature because if we do the only people we will succeed in hurting will be the people who are already hurt by marital breakdown.

I see the report of the Joint Committee on Marriage Breakdown as a very useful one. I hope that this debate will help the public to become well informed on the issues. The case has to be argued. I believe, on social grounds and not on the basis of church doctrine, even of the majority Church. Indeed, I was pleased to note that Canon O'Callaghan, in his submission, stated:

Those who insist on seeing the issue purely in terms of the State enforcing or not enforcing Catholic moral teaching are missing the point. The question to be decided as far as state law is concerned is the impact on society which a given law would be likely to have. Therefore any suggestion or proposal should be debated strictly on its merits, not whether it is against the religion or the conviction of a particular denomination or even majority.

I believe this is the kernel of the matter and I hope, as Canon O'Callaghan said, that point is not missed. The matter must be debated on social grounds.

Miss Flaherty

Like other speakers, I welcome the fact that the report of the Joint Committee on Marriage Breakdown is before the House for discussion. The report and the equally important minutes of evidence taken at the joint committee form a major contribution to the wide debate on the issue of marriage breakdown. They contribute also towards the examination of whether we need to make legal remedies available to people to allow them remarry currently not available in this country. I have long held the view that we should deal with this problem and as quickly as possible. I recognise the fears that underlined much of the presentation of Deputy J. Doyle's contribution with regard to the question of whether we should introduce divorce and its effect on the stability of marriage.

In my work as a councillor and as a TD in Dublin I have met many individual cases of hardship and among family and friends. I know now of too many cases of people for whom their marriage constitutes nothing more than a legal bind, where the full range of legal remedies has been resorted to, including the whole gamut of foreign divorces and so on available to such people. All that remains is for this State to have the courage to allow these people a chance to either legalise their new relationship or to have the door closed on what for many has proved to be an unhappy and traumatic experience.

For me, the picture that emerges in dealing with this issue represents perhaps the other side that was not emphasised by Deputy J. Doyle when he spoke of women and children in marriage and how they would suffer from the effects of divorce. My experience in a situation where a marriage has broken down — whether or not recognised in divorce — is that there is immense suffering on the part of the women and children involved.

As Dr. Jack Dominion pointed out in his submission to the committee, in 70 to 75 per cent of cases it is women who seek divorce. Obviously, there are arguments to be made from both sides; but if divorce is such an unattractive or negative option for women then why is it that where divorce is available substantially it is women who seek it? It has been my experience that it is those women and children who suffer who in turn face up to initiating the very difficult processes available to them, of, say, barring orders, legal separations and all the trauma they involve. They resort to them because of a very difficult and traumatic situation.

Although it may occur in a minority of cases, it has been my experience that there is very little frivolous resort to the legal remedies available to get out of a marriage.

Reading through the report and minutes of evidence I was very impressed at the level of debate and of thought given to the nature of Irish society and the changes which have taken place. I see a significant difference between my position and that of, say, Deputy Barnes, who spoke with the depth of feeling and passion of somebody who has lived in Irish society for a longer time and through a period of tremendous change. For example, matters that I might tend to take for granted in relation to the position of women she has seen fought for and achieved at great pain and sacrifice. Growing up, as I did, in the Dublin of the sixties and seventies, it was felt to be a time of great expansion and hope for young people. It was a time when young people felt we were moving steadily forward in a changing society, one that recognised changed roles for women.

During the eighties I, for one, and perhaps many others, have experienced frustration at the pace of change, the slowness in moving forward. It was very refreshing to note in many of the submissions made to the Committee on Marriage Breakdown, even within the Church, that in the process of considering all of the matters before the committee the members of the committee themselves came to acknowledge how very much our society had changed.

Many people here have tended to speak about such changes as though they were all bad. There are those who see the changes in relation to marriage in our society as all bad. But the fact the people are no longer willing to accept the kind of marriage that might have been acceptable in the past is not necessarily a negative sign. Again I would refer to the view of Dr. Jack Dominion in his submission to the committee when he indicated that modern marriage is veering away from the framework of mutual duties and rights towards the highest possible satisfaction of personal needs, in co-operative partnership, not an institution brought about by reference to status.

That is an extremely important and good development. While the new demands being made on marriage may lead to a greater incidence of breakdown, the quality of marriage, the marriage of the future, may be vastly improved and it may become a much healthier and more equal partnership than we have seen in the past. In order to cope with all the implications of accepting that people may have higher expectations of marriage than they had in the past — including acknowledgement that some marriages are built on unstable foundations, do not work and that persons who unwittingly become involved should have an opportunity to try again, if they feel so inclined, and if they are lucky enough to find somebody with whom they feel they can build another partnership — we must take a step further and do so as quickly as possible, particularly bearing in mind the many thousands of people in need of that opportunity.

I may be the final speaker in this debate. I know there remain a few others, at most, offering. We have had, I think, of the order of 28 to 30 speakers. This was a process initiated arising out of this Government's commitment, in their Programme for Government, to see progress made on this important issue. It was a process viewed with cynicism as a delaying tactic by many people who wished to see immediate change effected. It has served its purpose of bringing about informed debate and of helping many people — I might refer, as did other speakers, to the Irish tendency not to look at these types of difficult social and sexual issues — to face up to some of the problems involved. Within this House the experience of the Committee on Marriage Breakdown changed many minds and hearts, increased the understanding of some Members who perhaps because they were themselves lucky enough to be happily married felt that this was an issue they could afford to leave to one side, one which did not demand immediate action.

Another important development has taken place in the course of this debate, that is, the rather dramatic breaking of political moulds that has occurred in the past few weeks. Many of us on the Fine Gael benches, as is publicly known, have a wide range of views on social issues, ranging from the extremely conservative to the liberal. We have been frustrated in debate on these social issues by the monolithic presentation of the single view on the other side of the House, where we know individuals hold different views.

We felt that, had the debate in the House been more open and allowed people to express their individual opinion on these very important issues, the outcome of many debates might have been different from what the party Whip system allows.

Since this debate on the marriage breakdown committee opened changes occurred which perhaps would allow decisions in the House to be taken in a different environment. The constant restraints from being able to express genuinely held views have been part of the pressure which led to the emergence of this new grouping in this House. If we are now some months down the road from voting on proposed actions as a result — I hope we are close to that — the situation in regard to voting patterns has changed substantially. Now we have a grouping of those who erstwhile were opposed to any change in this area and who are committed publicly and openly to a liberalisation of the laws. This will change the face of discussions of social issues in the House and in Irish politics in the future. I welcome that change. I hope it will help members of Fine Gael who have been frustrated both by opposition within the party and large scale opposition in the House from seeing some of the changes — for which we become involved in politics and which we sought in the late seventies when other political moulds were being broken and great advantages made by this party — being made. I welcome this change as an opportunity to see progress in these important issues.

Much of the committee's work resulted in findings which are substantially non-contentious. Their terms of reference were that the growing awareness of marriage breakdown is a social reality giving rise to social, economic and legal problems requiring possible legal action.

Their response to this came about in the two areas of possible support for marriage and legal remedies. Perhaps they ducked the latter to some extent. I have a clear view on that and I made clear commitments both on doorsteps and at public meetings when first I stood as a candidate. The committee recognised finally that many thousands are in a legal limbo, tied to a legal marriage that in social reality no longer exists. However, the committee did not go much further on committing themselves to the need for a legal remedy which would allow remarriage.

In every other area of consideration of marriage breakdown substantial reforms were recommended. The Government should not delay in dealing with many of these areas. The important areas are support for marriage and existing legal solutions available. In support for marriage, the question of education was paramount. It is probably no accident that the current Minister for Education, Deputy Hussey, is a woman from a feminist tradition. She is committed actively to and is proceeding rapidly with plans to implement a learning for living programme which is clearly the first step in the education of people for relationships and for life. It has been identified as a need by youth groups and by anybody dealing with young people who are facing so many problems. In mainstream education we must find room for educating people about life and its challenges and within that not necessarily about marriage but about relationships and responsibilities. The committee have given important emphasis to the need here.

I do not support many of Deputy Glenn's views but I agree with her in relation to family support. Our tax system takes no account at all of the financial burdens of children whether one is working or out of work. They are a tremendous financial burden and there is virtually no support of any substance for families. I am in a position at the moment to be sensitive to that. Undoubtedly, couples who decide to have children are significantly worse off than couples who remain childless. This is our tradition in Ireland, and that and the influence of the Catholic Church have maintained an unusually high birth rate here. However, there is evidence of substantial change in this. We need only look at the social transformation in the rest of Europe. In Germany, for example, 30 per cent of all marriages are now childless, and incentives to people to consider having children, that would be inconceivable elsewhere, have had to be devised there.

While we are far removed from that, we who value children and the family must deal with this area of financial pressure before we reach the nearly child-free society that Germany is dealing with at present. It exists to a lesser degree in France but apparently it is a national crisis situation in Germany.

The State must become involved in the area of pre-marriage and post-marriage counselling. So far the State has failed to become involved here. The Churches may get a little State support for this but it is quite inadequate. Groups of people who have expertise in this regard become involved voluntarily. The State should immediately develop a programme for proper pre-marriage and post-marriage guidance.

Action which is clearly necessary on the age of marriage is proposed. The evidence here is irrefutable that young marriages in general have a high failure rate and combined with the stress of pre-marital pregnancy the rate is even higher.

We can tackle this directly by dealing with the age of marriage. The Catholic Church tries to do this by insisting on a waiting period between notification of the marriage and the marriage, and the State should consider this. It can be helpful in giving people time to think about entering into marriage because of pre-marital pregnancy.

The committee identified an area after marriage when only very limited counselling is available to people. Counselling should be organised on a local basis and should be readily accessible. The way forward in this is to support voluntary agencies who are engaged in this work to enable them to extend their network so that people will not have to wait until the situation has reached a crisis and they are driven to looking for help. They must be aware that help is available in the early stages. People who seek help at that stage can avoid eventual breakdown.

Throughout this debate, depending upon how one feels about the issue of divorce, the extent of the problems or whether one would prefer not to deal with this problem, there were many interpretations of the statistics involved.

There is no doubt that there are tens of thousands of people affected by marital breakdown. There are statistics for the number of separation, maintenance and barring orders; but there is a clearly identifiable need to get the complete picture. My work as a councillor would indicate that many solutions are sought.

There are statistics for deserted wives but under the social welfare scheme there are many families who find it very simple to reorganise themselves into new units, entering into new relationships. There may be separate payments for husband and wife. Under the social welfare system it is much easier to make these rearrangements than in the case of people with property to exchange and organise. The number of people living perhaps in local authority accommodation and in receipt of social welfare other than the deserted wife's allowance may be a large hidden group not adequately taken into account in statistics on marital breakdown. There being no property and very little income, they rarely resort to the courts. In Dublin the local authority accept new relationships as a stable unit provided that those involved have been living together and are contributing to the rent for a given period of time. Many of these would not figure in statistics but there is no doubt that the problem is extensive and is very serious for the many involved.

The legal remedies available have been outlined extensively in the reports of the committee. I was particularly impressed by the proposals for improvement.

Throughout all the recommendations in relation to matters such as nullity, separation, agreements, judicial separation, one thing clearly emerges which has been identified for a long time, not just in relation to marital breakdown but to all child care issues, and that is the need for a family court. The Government must regard this as a priority need in the area of family law. It is long overdue and would be perhaps the single most generous act that any Government could do for those who are in a state of disharmony. As that committee and other groups recommend the State, through a proper family court system, could provide the initial mediation services which might prevent marriages from breaking down, by insisting that all couples who come before the court initially go through a mediation process long sought for by those involved in this area. Until the State has a sensitive, human court environment in which to deal with these matters, added to the human problem will be the insensitivity of the legal system and setup which is adversarial and totally unsuited to dealing with 70 per cent of problems relating to marriage breakdown. That would be a very desirable reform and, regardless of the progress being made on the very controversial issue of divorce and remarrying in law, there is no excuse for not making progress on this matter. It should be established as a priority need and every speaker who has referred to it has been unanimous on that. There is a consensus of opinion that something should be done.

There is need for special family judges. The problem of varying judgements is more terrifying in the case of children's rights and needs, being particularly offensive and unacceptable in these cases.

There is great need for regular judges in the family court with a certain consistency of approach based on a developed, specialised philosophy which would always try initially to mediate and reduce the areas of conflict, keeping the formal court situation only for those areas of irresolvable conflict which would be confined to matters of property in many cases.

On the question of the nature of divorce provisions, the situation in this country is that every legal remedy is available except the possibility of remarriage. As early as 1870 separation was accepted in law. In other words, it was accepted then that marriages break down and people who have entered into a legal marriage can break that agreement and agree to live apart. In the intervening period we have begun to recognise foreign divorces, as I indicated, in many of our State agencies. Throughout the Department of Social Welfare and in regard to local authority housing there is a recognition of separation and of new relationships. All that remains to be done is to allow individuals to remarry in law. We must face the fact that the statistics of marriage breakdown are substantially increasing.

I appreciate many of the fears in this regard, fears which are very deep and understandable and cannot be written off easily. One fear is that the availability of divorce will destabilise marriage. My position on this is defensive. It is ungenerous that those with a great need to have their situation regularised and sorted out are left without a remedy. The reality of the problems associated with marriage breakdown and the human suffering which I have seen in so many cases lead me to believe that it is not my duty to ignore the continued suffering of the people involved, having no legal remedy, in order that the remainder of society may feel slightly more secure. That is unChristian and ungenerous and is not a position which I support.

I have presented an example of a typical person coming to my advice centre — female and in the late twenties, with one or two children perhaps after six to eight years of marriage, having suffered violence and traumatically trying to decide whether to separate from her husband. I am distressed at the thought that the State will never allow that child to know any other pattern of family, that the State will never give its blessing to a second attempt to establish a family for that child and that woman. That would force me to support any alternative for that woman and that child. I do not think that we will accept that position any longer in Ireland.

Deputy Doyle spoke for some time on the effects of marriage breakdown on children. In marriage breakdown there is bound to be suffering for the children. In the US, where marriages are broken frivolously and in which there would not be pre-separation stress, the trauma is not so intense for children. The Irish Times had a series of articles covering different families and suggested that children suffer more intensely if there is a period of stress in marriages, even if violence is not involved. There were disagreements and regular arguments between the parents involved and the environment was most unhappy and painful for the children. Women whom I have met who have gone through this period of stress before separation have told me that after separating there was peace in the household — the families are more at peace than in the period before the separation.

Although I suggest that our laws should encourage as close a relationship as possible between the parents after separation, the children are probably better in a stable relationship with one parent than in an unstable one with both parents. It is better for the children to have a normal relationship with one parent than an unstable one with both.

The committee dealt very briefly in the first chapter of the report with illegitimacy. I am glad the committee emphasised the need to deal with it. There is imminent legislation on this subject in line with our commitment to social justice. As well as providing for a full legal remedy for separated people who wish to remarry, we must treat the problems of illegitimate children in a very serious way. At the moment they are denied full rights in our society simply because of an accident of birth.

An Ceann Comhairle

Os rud é nach bhfuil Teachta ar bith eile ag iarraidh ráiteas a dhéanamh, tá an Dáil ar athló go dtí 2.30 p.m. Dé Máirt seo chugainn, 28 Eanáir 1986. Because no other Deputy is offering, the Dáil stands adjourned until until 2.30 p.m. on Tuesday, 28 January 1986.

The Dáil adjourned at 1.05 p.m. until 2.30 p.m. on Tuesday, 28 January 1986.