Vets will not agree with the Minister.

It is the same startle.

Senator McDowell earlier referred to Woody Allen. I know Woody Allen also said that 90% of success is showing up. Would that it were the case that our presence here today could actually get the Government to think again about what it is doing. I will have to see, but I have my doubts. Senator McDowell and I may have different views on what precisely marriage is. We certainly were not on the same side of the marriage referendum. He would probably disagree with me, to some degree and in some ways, that referendum was…

No. You can check the record, Senator Ruane.

They do not want anything like family to cut across their idea of radical equality. They see men's and women's roles in society as indistinguishable, and to achieve that they will use the Trojan Horse of undefined "durable relationships" to now form the fundamental unit of society. Let us think about that. Any anarchic relationship, once it is durable, which does not mean duration, as we know, can form the unit group of society - a relationship in which no duties or responsibilities are spelled out but which is now…

There is no doubt that some former Attorneys General accede to places of great wisdom and insight but we are all wise enough to know that Attorneys General do not possess these crystal balls. The Minister is not willing to show us the small print. Continuing to anchor the family to marriage gives us a reference point for what we understand a family to be in principle - a nuclear family and relationships based on kinship. It does not exclude other relationships and, as we have seen, our laws and court decisions are …

-----to always happen, as the O'Meara judgment shows. My amendments are being proposed because as an increasingly troubled society, we should be promoting marriage and not demoting it. I will go back to the invocation of personal experience, and I respect everybody's personal experience here, including my own. If I say that marriage breakdown and divorce cause a lot of pain to children, am I judging those people who have had to go through that experience? Of course, I am not. I am not denying for an instant people'…

I will always declare mine. If you are a councillor pushing for planning permission, for example, and you have an agenda to declare, you had better show it.

I accept that and I will not linger on the point except to say that the principles of the McKenna judgment were clear - the Government may not spend public money promoting one side or the other of a referendum. It follows from that in spirit, if not in law, that those receiving public money should be very careful about getting involved in a referendum and must certainly be asked the question each time they show up as to whether their bias has an aspect of self-interest because the Government and many NGOs show litt…

I will conclude. What I see in this Government proposal is actually an attack on disadvantaged communities more than on anybody else. I have no vested interest in promoting something for some kind of theoretical reason. I call on myself and everybody else to look at the evidence and to see whether there is a reason the State should have some respect for marriage between men and women. Is it just another option in terms of people who want to express their love publicly or does it have some kind of social benefit? Th…

And be asked the question.

On a point of order-----

Yes. What is the rule if somebody accuses somebody?

It has to apply equally across the House. That is all. I know the Cathaoirleach would want that.

Too many of them.

I was-----

I would not bet against it.

That was not the assertion. Now, who is misrepresenting?

All true, but marriage-----

They are not guardrails; they are descriptions.