Civil nullity of marriage
De Rossa asked whether the Government would avoid treating religious nullities as civil law and raised separate civil proceedings. The Minister said he would consider reports on civil nullity, while noting that civil law could not always be aligned with canon law.
Perhaps I was too vague in my question. Can the Minister assure us that under no circumstances will we enter the sham of trying to regularise Roman Catholic nullities in the law? Perhaps he will indicate also that we may introduce separate civil proceedings for all marriages in the State so that there is no confusion between religious ceremonies of marriage and the civil marriage ceremony.
Comment on this
I think I can answer directly by saying to the Deputy that one of the matters I will be considering in the context of bringing forward this legislation is the report of the Law Reform Commission on nullity of marriage and the references to that subject, that is civil nullity, in the report of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Marriage Breakdown. In various places throughout the country over the last eight or nine weeks, including this Chamber, I have given the opinion that there are certain areas where it would be impossible to align the civil law of nullity with the provisions of Canon Law for a number of different reasons that I do not think I should go into.