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Greens outwitted by FF on civil unions issue, Gilmore tells Dail

Issued : Thursday 1 November, 2007

The past 24 hours has shown that the Greens have learned nothing from their experience in the negotiation for the Programme for Government where they were hopeless outwitted and outmanoeuvred by the far more experienced Fianna Fail ministers.

The truth is that they have again been sold a pup and outwitted and outmanoeuvred again. The commitments they got are virtually meaningless and are actually a retreat from what was on offer from the then Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, back in February last.
At that time Minister McDowell sought a deferral of the second reading of our Bill for a period of six months, 'with a view to enabling a more comprehensive approach to the question of civil partnership to be adopted by the House' .
The government amendment on this occasion, if passed, will simply kill off the Labour Bill and kick the issue off into the indefinite future. I have heard Deputy Cuffe in a series of interviews claim that the commitment to publish heads of a bill by March is a great victory for the Green Party. Oh how can they be still so naïve?
Firstly if the March deadline is so significant, why is it not included in the government amendment before us? Secondly anyone with even a passing knowledge of how the legislative system works knows that there can be a huge interval between heads of a Bill being agreed and the legislation actually being published, never mind being enacted.
Just to give one example. If Deputy Cuffe cares to look at the government's legislative programme published in autumn 2003, he will see that among the promised Bills listed under 'legislation for which the heads of bill have been agreed by the government', he will see the Ombudsman (Amendment) Bill. Four years later that Bill has still not been published.
If the Greens were serious about this issue the least they would have done was to insist that the government amendment should not block the restoration of the Labour Party Civil Unions Bill to the Order Paper, even if they were not prepared to accept the timetable we had set out for further consideration of its terms. Ironically, if they had done so, it would have greatly strengthened their bargaining position with Fianna Fail.
The indisputable fact is that they have backed down, backed off and retreated from the principle position they expressed just eight months ago. In his speech in February, Deputy Cuffe praised the Bill, and expressed the wish that the government would have the courage to support the Labour Bill. He criticised what he called the dithering on the issue for more than a year, but the amendment his party has now agreed to is a licence for an indefinite period of further dithering.
The Greens have taken the easy option this week. They decide to stage a token stand on the issue of Michael Woods' pension deal by withdrawing their two members of the Seanad from a vote that would make no difference. But here today, where their votes and a principled stand would make a genuine difference on this issue of crucial importance to a significant minority of our citizens, they have backed off and backed down.