Civil Partnerships Edge Closer

The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Mr. Dermot Ahern T.D., this week published the Civil Partnership Bill 2009.

The Bill provides for a statutory civil partnership registration scheme for same-sex couples together with a range of rights and duties consequent on registration including maintenance obligations, protection of a shared home, pension rights and succession.

On registration of a civil partnership, the civil partners will be treated in the same way as spouses under the tax and social welfare codes.

The necessary legislative provisions, to be provided for in Finance and Social Welfare Bills, will be brought into effect at the same time as the civil partnership registration scheme commences.

The Bill provides, for unmarried opposite-sex couples and unregistered same-sex couples, a redress scheme to give protection to a financially dependent person at the end of a long-term cohabiting relationship.

The cohabitants scheme will put in place a legal safety-net for people living in long-term relationships who may otherwise be very vulnerable financially at the end of a relationship, whether through break-up or through bereavement.

Announcing the publication, Minister Ahern said: "Publication of the Bill implements a commitment in the Agreed Program for Government to legislate for Civil Partnerships.

"The Bill provides very significant rights to civil partners which raises complex legal issues in the context of the special protection which the Constitution guarantees to marriage and in relation to the equality rights protected by Article 40.1 of the Constitution.

"The Bill has been carefully framed to balance any potential conflict between these two constitutionally guaranteed rights.

"This balance is achieved by maintaining material distinctions between civil partnership and marriage, in particular between the rights attaching to both, while at the same time reflecting the equality rights protected by the Constitution."

The Bill will give legal recognition to cohabitant agreements enabling cohabitants to regulate their joint financial and property affairs.

It will provide legal certainty as to the status of cohabitant agreements made by couples who wish to regulate their financial and property affairs but who do not wish to marry or enter a civil partnership and who do not wish the redress scheme to apply to them.

The Bill draws on both the Report of the Law Reform Commission on The Rights and Duties of Cohabitants and the Colley Options Paper on Domestic Partnership.

Concluding, the Minister said: "This Bill will put in place a legal regime that reflects the many forms of relationships in modern Irish society.

"It provides legal protection for cohabiting couples and is an important step, particularly for same-sex couples, whose relationships have not previously been given legal recognition by the State."