Legal Position Before 2011
In March 2004, there was controversy in the Dáil surrounding a definition of 'spouse' when it was claimed that the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Mary Coughlan was seeking to exclude non-married partners from Social welfare legislation. The exclusion was a Government response to a finding by the Equality Tribunal that a gay couple was discriminated against in travel privileges.
In 2004, the Civil Registration Act, which included a prohibition of same-sex marriage was passed. The act explicitly declared that there was an "impediment to a marriage" if "both parties are of the same sex".
In December 2006, judgment in the 'KAL Case' (see below), the Irish High Court held that marriage as defined in the Irish Constitution was between a man and a woman and that there was no breach of rights in the refusal of the Revenue Commissioners to recognise foreign same-sex marriages.
Read more about this topic: Recognition Of Same-sex Unions In The Republic Of Ireland
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“The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal. From the viewpoint of our legal institutions and of our moral standards of judgment, this normality was much more terrifying than all the atrocities put together.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
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