Oireachtas Information on Civil Partnership Bill
Posted by Maman Poulet on 31 Oct 2009 at 02:11 am | Tagged as: Irish Politics, LGBT, Same Sex Partnerships
One of the services that the Oireachtas Library and Research Service provides for members is a Bills Digest Service and I received a copy of the digest that has been prepared for Oireachtas members on the Civil Partnership Bill.
The purpose of the Bills Digest Service is to aid Members in the scrutiny of legislation by providing timely, accessible briefings on legislation before the Houses. The Bills Digest series is a companion service to our Debate Pack Service which aims to provide Members with selected secondary source material for upcoming legislative debates in a convenient format.
Now we know how members may get the info for their speeches apart from lobby groups and indeed I’m looking forward to blogging the speeches during the debates in both houses.
I’ve not read the entire document but note it’s has a summary of the work that has been done to date on researching (stalling!) and debating the issue. There’s some examination of the costs in the UK.
Have a look and see what you think yourself.
Civil Partnership Bills 2009 – Digest for Oireachtas Members
Brilliant digging to find this!!!! (Scribd is soooo cooool!)
I’ve only downloaded a copy to read and did notice a couple of strange things like “cohabitatants” (p3) and “Principals” of the Bill. It is rather
‘revisionist’ IMO about how and why previous attempts to introduce civil partnership bills were not successful, ditto the views on marriage (as far as I’ve read).
The memo states directly that there is no provision for welfare and tax of civil partners and notes other legislation would be required. This frankly alarms the hell out of me: why is there this great big hole in the road at this point?
It would be prudent for the Government to clarify these issues by putting up Bills (or amendments to existing legislation) in theses arenas, as there will be much time wasted debating Civil Partnership and having Min for Finance making up amendments/ appeasing allcomers over these issues (again). Today in the Irish Times, Andreas Hess has a thoughtful piece about the weakness of public intellectuals in this Republic: when a government leaves cow pats like no legislation on tax of civil partners (etc.), it weakens the citizens’ abilities to have an ‘intellectual’ discourse, if we have to shout from the sidelines as usual about things that should have been prepared while we have been sitting in the ante-room since 1993.
Interesting! On a cursory scan of the document, it doesn’t look too bad: it states clearly what the Bill doesn’t do as well as what it does, and the section on comparisons with other jurisdictions is useful.
I’d have to have a proper read of it to see what I really think of it, but so far the Digest gets a “Surprisingly not bad” from me.
In your experience, MP, do you reckon a timeline can be discerned from the publication of these Digests to the timing of the Dáil/Seanad debates?
I don’t think there is anything that can be discerned except the bill is due this session. The date on the document is 24 September though I think it’s been promoted only recently. I’ve checked the schedule for this week and the bill is not listed (It’s more NAMA and some of the supplementary estimates also appear for a vote at end of week)
Thanks, MP. Will keep an eye on that schedule!
@ Sean – I’ve heard a couple of people say that separate legislation on welfare and tax means it’s easier to amend a finance bill (for example restricting any rights already recognised for same-sex couples) rather than amending a civil partnership bill, without many people noticing, or at least not noticing until it may be very late.
(That may be a cynical or slightly paranoid view, but it made sense when I heard it!)
I vaguely remember hearing something as well that There is a supposed constitutional reason as well for introducing separate finance and social welfare parts of the Bill.
Would I be right in thinking that the finance part of the bill is part of the budget? And therefore will be on Dec 9th?
Those parliamentarians debating NAMA deserve a medal or therapy… or both…
Thanks for the info on the point about legislative issues for the CP Bill. I am still concerned that the proverbial thinking isn’t joined up. The sense of irony that we cannot join up the elements and we cannot have gay marriage either for constitutional reasons is not lost on me. I sense that a CP Bill without the welfare/ tax elements in place until sometime into 2010, and it will effectively corrale us without an appropriate package of rights/ entitlements, etc. If it is going to go down to the wire in December, I’m also concerned the government might fall on the budget anyhow – if backbenchers revolted over drink-driving, what will they do over the budget?