State moves toward legal protection for civil partnerships

THE Government is about to take the first step towards providing legal protection for civil partnerships with the establishment of a new working group to advise on the issue.

Yesterday’s Cabinet meeting agreed that the Department of Justice would establish the working group and instruct it to prepare an options paper for the Government.

The paper would outline possible options towards introducing the first ever legal structure and definition for cohabiting couples. Those options would have to stop short of amending the Constitution’s definition of the family, since the Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution has ruled out a referendum on the issue.