Thirty-ninth Amendment of the Constitution (The Family) Bill 2023: Committee and Remaining Stages
Seanad Éireann — 2024-01-23
============================================================

Lynn Ruane (IND), University of Dublin

On the amendments and discussions today, it was a conversation that did nothing but include men. I spoke about my father and wanting to be associated directly with him as my father. I spoke about my children's fathers and in the absence of something happening to me I want them to be directly recognised in our Constitution, as they should be, as their family. All the conversation around unmarried couples is inclusive of men. They are literally part of the conversation. What was said was inaccurate because it is unfair to the actual amendments. Our amendment states, "between parent and child". It does not state, "between mother and child". If this were about removing men from any conversation these amendments would say mother and child. They clearly say that durable relationship should explicitly state, " parent and child". The relationship is about durable relationships regardless of the gender of the parent. We need to emphasis that is what it is about.
I pick up on the point about the deconstruction of marriage. I do not believe we should deconstruct marriage at all. I am happy it is still there. I am fine with that. I think a large portion of society believes in marriage and wants to get married. I think it only right they are also represented within the Constitution. However, I suppose I take issue with comments that are also shameful in nature – throwaway comments about criminality and marriage. I have just spoken about the shame we felt growing up in unmarried families. There is now a connection made, saying that you are more likely to be involved in criminality if you come from a single-parent household. That was the assertion made today. It is very unfortunate-----

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2024-01-23/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:52:34+00:00
Sitting date: 2024-01-23