Conference tallis::celt

Court Costs probably.  Clerks and Judges salaries etc.

Julie

    Forget divorce. Vote for polygamy
    MBr

    The Mormons had that going in Utah for quite
    some time. I have no objections to its
    reintroduction in Massachusetts Martin.
    
    ;v)

    
    George-
    
    I may be off but I've heard that a woman and children that is abandoned
    by her husband is not eligible for aid/support cuz they consider her
    still married and the husband's income invalidates aid requirements.
    I presume this would change if divorce was allowed and only the
    mother's income was considered....
    
    /jen

    
    Jen,
    
    Don't think that is strictly true...There is alot of civil law
    legislation which covers this area.
    
    Basically its a dog fight here at the moment...The vote could go either
    way..The catholic fanatics on one side are out in numbers..they weren't
    that vocal around all the child abuse scandals..!  Their propoganda
    machine is based on fear "hello divorce bye bye Daddy" being one of their 
    favourites..They claim we will pay 10% more tax if divorce comes
    through...
    
    rgs,
    
    Mick  

    
    It could also be a "contingency", based on the fact that I'm sure that
    Ireland is no different than other counteries, so collecting the child
    support will NOT be 100%, therefore the costs will default to the
    social welfare system.

    But how does it work now? A spouse in Limerick leaves his or her family
    and moves to Dublin. Is there any system in place *today* that enforces
    that this person pay child support? Is this cost already defaulting to
    the social welfare system?
    
    /G

    
    Well if the person stays in the Republic, there is probably someway to
    make it happen, very difficult if the person moves out of the state.
    
    The only issue here is that Divorce would formalize that and therefore
    its an easy way for anti-divorce groups to pin the dollars on the
    referendum, rather than accepting the facting that the costs exist
    today (as does broken marriages), rather than the usual Irish
    government and church attitude of ignoring the problem(s).
    
    I don't have all the data, but I suspect that most of the anti-divorce
    data is structured to influence and scare the un-decided types and get
    them to vote NO as happened 10+ years ago.
    

    I suspect opponents of divorce would say that the 
    extra costs are main due to the increased rate of
    separation that no-fault divorce will cause. I.e.
    the very fact that no-fault divorce is available
    will increase the number of marriage breakdowns.
    
    I don't know if this is the case universally,
    but it certainly seems to be borne out by the
    experience of our cultural neighbours in GB,
    NI and the USA. According to this week's
    Sunday Business Post, the rate of separation
    tripled in NI in the years after no-fault
    divorce was introduced there.
    
    Post
    

Just to put another angle on this. What message would a `No' vote send to the
Unionist community in the North? Much progress has been made in the last decade
to turn Ireland into a modern, pluralistic, outward-looking nation. A `no' vote
would be perceived by our neighbours as the RC church still holding sway over 
a nation of pious bible-bashers who jump when the parish priest tells them to. 
I would like to see divorce introduced, the sooner the better. I have friends 
in Ireland who are basically in a legal limbo, and there is still a social 
stigma associated with being seperated from your spouse. These people deserve 
better than the status quo....

For their sake I hope Ireland votes Yes to divorce....

Ray....
       

    > a nation of pious bible-bashers ...
    
    So North and South still have that in common!
    
    Seriously, I can't see Paisley making his last stand 
    on divorce, can  you?
    
    >... and there is still a social
    > stigma associated with being seperated from your spouse
    
    I don't see how making divorce legal will change that.
    After all, separation is legal, and that didn't lift the stigma.
    

    Re: .5
    Mick,
    
    I don't know if you saw Questions and Answers this week but Justice
    O'Hanlon was on the panel defending the anti divorce position along
    with Rosemary Swords. Quite early into the show the mask slipped and
    Judge Dread uttered the "I" word. ("I" for Illegitimate as in
    Children). More than anything else this reveals the anti divorce
    campaigners for what they are: squalid, mean minded bigots.
    
    When Michael Noonan pointed out to the Judge that there was no such
    thing anymore as illegitimate children he refused to recant and lapsed
    instead into a sullen, arrogant silence.
    
    When senior members of the clergy were concealing and condoning child
    abuse by their priests there wasn't a peep from the likes of O'Hanlon.
    
    When bishops abscond leaving large gaps in diocesan funds there isn't a
    word from O'Hanlon.
    
    The type of country that O'Hanlon and his ilk want is a one people, one
    faith theocracy. Irish people owe it to their children to get out and
    vote YES on Friday next to put a stop to the march of fundamentalist
    bigotry this side of the border.
    
    Paul
    
    

    No such thing as illegitimate children any more?
    Bejaysus you can legislate for anything these days!
    When is our legislature going to legislate out of 
    existence disease, famine and dandruff as well?
    
    
    As the great day approaches, my drive to work is 
    enlivened by a panoply of pro- and anti-divorce
    posters.
    
    Most irrelevant poster:
    We want jobs, not divorce.
    
    Most uninformative poster:
    Vote yes.
    
    Generally, though there has been much debate and discussion,
    it's mostly heat, rather than light, that both  sides have
    been generating.  I still feel uninformed about even the
    most basic facts. For instance, a comparative analysis (from
    both sides of the debate) of divorce in the UK or NI would
    be helpful. A comparison of divorce laws in various countries.
    Costs. Rates of separation, and how legislation changes
    these rates.  Most of this fairly basic stuff has not
    been pushed, or if it has, it's the anti-divorce side
    which has been pushing it. This leads me to suspect that
    it doesn't make good propaganda for the pro-divorce side.
    If so, a better stance would have been to come clean and
    say "look, we know no-fault divorce will increase the
    number of separations by such-and-such an amount, and
    will lead to this extra cost to the exchequer. We believe
    that the benefits of no-fault divorce are worth that cost". 
    It seems dishonest to ignore the matter.
    

    What sort of line is the Catholic Church taking from the pulpit?
    Is it like the 'fire and brimstone' tyrade of dis-information
    pumped out during the contraception campaign? 
    
    If those days, some man.. a priest with about half a term's 
    instruction at Maynooth in ethics, morals and canon law on the 
    subject, and no apparent experience of married life in Ireland,
    stood up and laid down the party line...
    
    John 

    As an atheist, I'm unable to say what line they're taking
    from the pulpit. In other media, they seem slower to have
    made any running than they did during the contraception
    campaign (due mainly, I think to  their problems lately
    with child-abusers in the ranks), but once they got going, 
    it seemed a little less fire-and-brimstone-like than I
    remember (but not much). Some wally tried to claim that 
    a divorced person could never receive the sacraments.
    Other than that, their opposition has not been on
    theological grounds (but, as I say, I don't know what's
    being said in church).
    
    

    Most inscrutible poster:
    
    There are 63% more UFO sightings in countries with divorce.
    
    (Is this pro or anti?)
    

Well I just heard the voting results.  They say the divorce referendum
passed but by the slightest of margins.  It was reported that the officials
ordered a recount to be sure.   In Cork they say it passed by 11 votes.
Folks on both sides say there is a lot of devisivness to be worked thru.

/jen

        Final count (per CNN) FOR: 50.3 / AGAINST: 49.7 - about 10k votes
        
        

    
    yes, I was watching one of the local Boston channels last nite (7 i
    think) and they did a report on it from Dublin. They seemed to feel
    that the result was a poor reflection on Ireland and that it actually
    questioned the belief that the "young" Ireland folk are no less
    conservative than their parents and indeed not "tuned in" to the world
    of free choice. I guess the message was that if enough "young" people
    felt strongly about free choice, they would have gone out and voted
    (tho a 60% turn-out is not bad).
    
    All in all I was surprosed at the result, I would have expected
    double-digits win and the interpretation of the result (and I'm sure
    the battles to follow), may refelect negatively on teh country and its
    people.
    
    Either glad its over.
    
    

    RE: -.1
    
    I'm not that surprised about the narrow margin in the result:
    I'm more concerned that the church-led conservatives are planning
    a legal review of the result on the premise that the pro-yes groups
    had the support of the government -- and *they* didn't.
    
    In listening to the BBC World Service late on Saturday night/Sunday
    morning, it was already clear that much of the support for the status 
    quo came from rural areas, while those in cities and larger towns
    tended to vote "yes". The clincher was expected to be the consensus
    in and around Dublin. And so it was.
    
    What is clear in the aftermath of the result, is that there has been
    a radical erosion of the authority exercised by the Catholic Church
    over both "the flock" (less sheep-like they, these days) and the governemnt.
    
    Recent church scandals over child sexual abuse, the church's
    apparent ambivalence to criminal law in this regard, and the former
    government's inertia in dealing with the problem, are thought to have 
    served -- quite rightly, in my opinion -- to underline an anachronistic, 
    unholy alliance between church and state. Just exactly who or what rules 
    the 26 counties? An elected government, or a wee whisper from the
    cardinal, or the local bishop? 
    
    Civil, and secular rights for the population in the Rebublic should not
    and, I hope, will not be at the bidding of the Catholic Church.
    
    John Bennett
    
    (Born Catholic.. now lapsed.) 
    
    
    
     

    It would be interesting to compare the results from rural and urban
    areas. I heard that it was a 60-40 `yes' vote in Dublin. I actually
    thought that it would have been more decisive. Have the regional
    results been published yet?...
    
    Ray.... 

( extracted from Irish Emigrant 27/Nov)

The outcome of the first count was:

              Yes                 No                 Valid Poll
        818,112 (50.23%)   810,592 (49.77%)          1,628,704

Recount:
        818,842 (50.28%)   809,728 (49.72%)          1,628,570


You will see from the following more detailed look at the outcome that 
twenty-five constituencies voted against change while sixteen were in 
favour:

                                 - YES -             - NO -
       Carlow/Kilkenny       24,651 (45.7%)      29,283 (54.3%)
       Cavan/Monaghan        17,817 (37.4%)      29,787 (62.6%)
       Clare                 17,578 (43.6%)      22,575 (56.0%)
       Cork East             17,287 (43.2%)      22,748 (56.8%)
       Cork North Central    20,110 (46.46%)     23,050 (53.22%)
       Cork North West       10,409 (33.8%)      20,264 (65.8%)
       Cork South Central    28,433 (52.74%)     25,360 (47.03%)
       Cork South West       11,755 (39.30%)     18,034 (60.39%)
       Donegal North East    10,401 (40.47%)     15,219 (59.25%)
       Donegal South West    10,450 (40.76%)     15,109 (58.94%)
       Dublin Central        19,384 (58.49%)     14,469 (41.50%)
       Dublin North          29,704 (65.17%)     15,756 (34.57%)
       Dublin N. Central     25,706 (58.3%)      18,408 (41.7%)
       Dublin North East     25,360 (64.71%)     13,718 (35.10%)
       Dublin North West     21,622 (60.57%)     13,948 (39.7%)
       Dublin South          39,454 (64.40%)     21,723 (35.44%)
       Dublin S. Central     22,795 (58.49%)     16,175 (41.51%)
       Dublin South East     24,912 (64.9%)      13,502 (35.1%)
       Dublin South West     29,808 (66.9%)      14,733 (33.8%)
       Dublin West           25,811 (66.8%)      13,697 (33.02%)
       Dun Laoghaire         41,028 (68.2%)      19,121 (31.8%)
       Galway East            9,001 (34.8%)      16,731 (64.75%)
       Galway West           22,977 (48.6%)      24,261 (51.01%)
       Kerry North           11,850 (40.7%)      17,128 (58.9%)
       Kerry South           10,203 (38.3%)      16,456 (61.7%)
       Kildare               29,397 (57.7%)      21,592 (42.3%)
       Laois/Offaly          20,426 (39.98%)     30,467 (59.67%)
       Limerick East         23,184 (50.08%)     23,140 (49.92%)
       Limerick West         10,617 (36%)        18,159 (64%)
       Longford/Roscommon    13,333 (35%)        24,477 (65%)
       Louth                 22,004 (51.6%)      20,516 (48.0%)
       Mayo East              9,243 (37.0%)      15,621 (62.6%)
       Mayo West             10,455 (41.33%)     14,764 (58.33%)
       Meath                 23,790 (47.95%)     25,861 (52.05%)
       Sligo/Leitrim         15,034 (41%)        21,490 (59%)
       Tipperary North       11,020 (38.22%)     17,699 (61.39%)
       Tipperary South       15,798 (42.3%)      21,557 (57.7%)
       Waterford             20,305 (49.8%)      20,508 (50.2%)
       Westmeath             11,704 41.75%)      16,353 (58.25%)
       Wexford               23,850 (48.32%)     25,305 (51.3%)
       Wicklow               30,171 (58.83%)     20,975 (40.89%)

    Amazing. Apart from two small pockets in the South West, (Cork SC and
    Limerick E), it was only the Eastern seaboard counties and Kildare
    which voted a majority `Yes'....
    
    ....I always knew Leinster people were heathens!!!! Up the Dubs..8-)
    
    Ray....

    
    I agree, i was shocked when I saw the break-out of votes, I would have
    thought that major cities (Cork, Limerick, Galway) would have had
    enough votes in the cities to counter the rural votes.
    
    I guess the NO campaign got really strong in the last few days,
    including the involvement of the Pope, Mother Teresa and also the use
    of the section of the interview with Princess Diane when she was asked
    about a divorce and she said "What will that solve, one must always
    consider the children". Of course the fact that if she is divorced she
    will become an almost "nobody" was not factored into her thnking.
    
    Again, it was certainly a surprise me.
           

    
    There is still a posibility of an objection...Over the amount of cash
    that the government spent for the yes vote..The Anti-divorce folk claim
    that the government were one-sided in the information the gave out...
    
    Some of those folk don't know what democracy means...It would be
    interesting to see where they got their cash from. Anyway I can't
    see the Courts overturning the result...
    
    Certainly seems to be two societies in ireland (rural/urban)..though I
    suppose you could say that for any country?...Dubliners now refered to
    as a "shower of heathens" -)
    
    rgs,
    
    mick

    >It would be interesting to see where they got their cash from. 
    
    Well, they didn't get it from the public purse (i.e. MY back pocket).
    
    >Anyway I can't see the Courts overturning the result...
   
    No. Nor I.
     
    >Certainly seems to be two societies in ireland (rural/urban)
    
    A better separation would be Pale/Beyond the Pale.
    

    
    
   > Pale/beyond the pale
    
  True..True...
    
    Freedom movement for " The Pale republic"..should start -) -)

Question;

I was having a discussion with a colleague regarding the divorce referendum
in Ireland and its implications etc.

One of the points that he made was that Ireland did NOT recognise foreign
divorces of Irish citizens !! - he was adamant that this was true.

I was always under the impressions that Divorce was one of the problems
that Ireland exported. But if a person went to England lived there for a
period of time (that required by UK law), they could get a divorce and
this divorce was in fact recognised by Irish law and that person could 
re-marry in Ireland in a civil ceremony (non Church) and thsi was all legal
    and above board - i.e.; recognized under the constitution.

My colleague contends that this is not correct.

Any experts out there that can settle this argument ?

    As far as I am aware Ireland does recognize foreign divorces.  That is,
    if you get divorced overseas, the divorce is recognized in Ireland. 
    However if both parties involved in the divorce move back to Ireland
    there are (I believe) grounds for arguing that the divorce is null and
    void.  In other words, for it to continue, one of the parties must
    maintain the overseas domicile.
    
    I also seem to remember that this possibility of contesting the divorce
    has not actually happened.  And finally, you're talking about state
    recognition of the divorce.  The divorced party could only get a state
    marriage afterwards, not necessarily a church one, as you already point
    out.
    
    I don't think this is a constitutional issue.  I believe it was
    established within the last decade or so as part of inter country
    cooperations between Ireland and other countries.  In other words it
    may not be something that works between Ireland and, say, Madagascar.
    
    Bernard

    In the Sunday Worcester Telegram & Gazette (Massachussetts, USA) there
    was an article as follows:
    
    Irish president, pope discuss 'spritual values' - Vatican City
    
    Pope John Paul II and Irish President Mary Robinson, who recently
    signed legislation lagalizing divorce in her country, discussed
    Ireland's "spritual values" yesterday, the Vatican said.
    
    John Paul is an ardent defender of the Roman Catholic church's ban on
    divorce.
    
    Spokeman Jouquin Navarro-Valls, describing the private audience, said
    "special reference" was made to "the defense and promotion of the
    spiritual values of the country".
    
    He said the two also discussed the Northern Ireland peace process and
    women's contribution to the "material and spritual good of the nation".
    
    The pope's talk with Robinson, one of the world's few female national
    leaders, came on International Women's Day. 
    
    Divorce became legal last month in Ireland, where 92 percent of
    citizens are baptized Roman Catholics and where the church led a long
    battle to keep the practice outlawed.
    
    ==========================================================
    
    Can anyone tell me how this was received? 
    
    How long has this Irish president been in office?
    
    Was this issue a leading factor in getting this president elected?
    
    Are there now a massive backlog in the courts to amend all the 
    dissertions, and get one's house in order? 
    
    
    Thanks in advance,
    
    _Kevin
    

   Re .30: Kevin, the Irish president signs the laws, she has nothing to do
with the process of making them. She's now close to the end of her five(? I
think) year term of office and is widely considered in the country as well
as in the rest of the world as a resounding success, as far as Irish
presidents go. This despite the fact that her election was a bit of a
surprise, mainly due to the fact that the candidate of the main party, the
Fianna Fail, was caught red-handed lying to the country just before the
election.
		Denis.