I welcome the Minister for Equality and Law Reform, Deputy Taylor, and his departmental officials to our meeting, the purpose of which is to discuss Committee Stage of the Family Law (Divorce) Bill, 1996. The Minister and the Dáil were anxious to deal with Committee Stage of this legislation as soon as possible after the conclusion of Second Stage and we were happy to comply with that request. This is important legislation. It was in abeyance pending the outcome of the Supreme Court decision in the Hanafin case. The Bill represents a milestone in family law reform. It is the eleventh family law Bill introduced in the past decade and the State's response to the plight of thousands of people in a legal vacuum with little redress.
The draft form of the Bill was widely circulated to thousands of citizens prior to last year's referendum. The present Bill is identical to the draft as the Government promised. I have no doubt we will have a most interesting debate over the next two days.
The Minister has cleared his diary to be available to the committee today. If we do not complete our deliberations, we will meet again tomorrow morning. Rather than deciding on a strict break for lunch, perhaps we will proceed until 1.30 p.m., review the situation then and adjourn at that stage. Is that agreed? Agreed.
A request to give oral evidence to the committee was received by the Lawyers' Divorce Campaign but time did not permit that. However, a document was circulated to all Members of the committee in the form of a submission. That would have been circulated prior to last weekend.
I remind Members that we are scheduled to meet at 11 a.m. tomorrow. There are a number of items on the agenda which we have not dealt with which we could discuss in private session tomorrow. Deputy O'Donoghue may not be with us tomorrow so Members might like to leave that for another time but we can review the situation when we conclude Committee Stage.