House of Representatives of Ireland debates Civil Partnership Bill 2009

12/03/09 Human Rights in Ireland:

December 3 saw the second stage debate on the Civil Partnership Bill 2009, which will establish new schemes for the legal recognition of co-habiting couples and same-sex civil partnerships. The Bill, in [Justice] Minister Dermot Ahern’s words[,] "creates for the first time in Irish law a scheme under which a same sex couple can formally declare their allegiance to each other, register their partnership under new provisions in the Civil Registration Act 2004, commit themselves to a range of duties and responsibilities and at the same time be subject under new law to a series of protections in the course of their partnership in the event of a failure of either party to maintain the other and in the event of disputes between them as to ownership of property."