Health Minister Leo Varadkar at a Community First Response scheme launch in the National Concert Hall yesterday yesterday.

The issue of same sex marriage and comments he made on gay adoption were raised during an interview this morning with Health Minister Leo Varadkar on RTÉ R1’s  Today With Sean O’Rourke.

Sean O’Rourke: “..you and [your] cabinet colleagues agreed the wording of the constitutional change or at least a proposed change in the Constitution, to provide for same sex marriage, or I think it’s called the Marriage Equality Bill, and its, it’s a very simple and brief phrase, I think it says ‘Marriage may be contracted in accordance with law by two persons without distinction as to their sex’, I suppose there was heightened interest in your own view given what you had said to Miriam O’Callaghan about being gay last Sunday here on the station. What kind of reaction have you had to that and do you think your own decision to, if you like, make your situation known has helped the campaign was that part of your thinking?”

Leo Varadkar: “Not hugely, it was very much a personal decision because there’s a number of policy issues coming up, issues about blood transfusion whether gay men can donate blood, issues about surrogacy, I didn’t want anyone to think or suggest I had some kind of hidden agenda, so that’s really why I said what I said, I don’t think there was anything behind it other than that. Look, the response from people has been really great, from constituents, from party members has been really very encouraging and I’m really grateful for that. I kind of wonder why I didn’t do it sooner but I’m a very private person and I’m going to keep my private life out of politics and that’s the way it’s going to stay.”

O’Rourke: “Okay. Now, one thing that two campaigners on the ‘no’ side – both representatives of the Iona Institute – Ronan Mullen and Breda O’Brien, they’ve been reminding us on in print and on the airwaves of something you said in the Dail in 2010, that every child has the right to a mother and a father and the State should vindicate that right, that’s a much more important right than that of two men and two women having a family, is that still your view?

Varadkar: “Yeah, well I should point out that was a speech ten years, or rather five years ago, it was a speech in support of civil partnership and I went on to say in that speech that there were other circumstances and other types of families including same sex families and so on and that we needed a mechanism to recognize that, so you always know you are on the right side of an argument when people selectively quote you out of context. Every child does have a mother and father, that’s basic biology and I think every child has right to know how their mother and father is. One of the things we propose to do in the surrogacy legislation, this isn’t regulated in Ireland, one of the things we propose to do is to ban commercial surrogacy for money and ban anonymous donations so every child will have the right to know who their mother and father is, but in the real world things aren’t always that simple and there are lots of one parents families and lots of families already where there is a same sex couple and they have kids, often from a previous marriage, all we’re trying to do in our Constitution with this amendment is to reflect the reality of the real world as it now is in Ireland. It’s not an attempt to change society, just an attempt to reflect it as it is.”

O’Rourke: “Is there anything in this referendum that would prevent you or prevent the Oireachtas at some point in allowing a preference, insofar as practicable, for children who are being adopted to be adopted into a situation where there is a mother and father in the above sense and to give that an added weight when children were being given out for adoption?”

Varadkar: “The amendment isn’t about that it’s not about adoption.”

O’Rourke: “I know but fears have been raised on the last occasion about options being closed off…”

Varadkar: “What’s happening with the Child and Family Bill which [Justice Minister] Frances Fitzgerald will bring before the Dail in the next few months is to allow civil partners to adopt, so it’s already the case that straight and married couples can adopt, single people can adopt, including gay and lesbian single people and this legislation will allow same sex couples and civil partners to adopt so the, so the Referendum will not be about adoption and children, I’ve no doubt people will try to make it about that just as they tried to make the Divorce Referendum about that but when you don’t have a good argument I guess you try to come up with tangential ones. “

O’Rourke: “Are you confident it will be carried given that there’s unanimity against the political parties in the Dail, it would seem, in favour of this measure?”

Varadkar: “I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t take anything at all for granted. Referendums are funny things and we have had two referendums in recent times where the polls were very much telling us it was going to pass, in the case of the Senate one it didn’t, in the case of the Children’s one it barely did, I think in the Children’s Referendum only one TD. in the entire Dail expressed reservations, so, you know, I think sometimes when all the political parties are behind something it makes some people suspicious, you know, even though it shouldn’t but it can do and I think the key thing in the campaign for people who are involved in it really is that it shouldn’t be led by politicians, it should be something that’s led by civil society groups and so on.”

Full Interview here

Previously: Leo’s Family Values

(Sasko Lazarov/Photocall Ireland)

“The question of adoption is ignored in this Bill because it is contentious. Sooner or later, it will have to be addressed. Every child has a father and a mother. Two men or two women cannot have a child together. A single person cannot have a child on their own unless they procure the pre-products of conception from an alternative source.

This is an undeniable fact. Unfortunately, sometimes in children’s lives one of the parents is not interested in them or dies. Where a child is an orphan, the State should replace their mother and father. Every child has the right to a mother and father and, as much as is possible, the State should vindicate that right.

That is a much more important right than that of two men or women having a family. That is the principle that should underline our laws regarding children and adoption. I am also uncomfortable about adoption by single people regardless of their sexual orientation. I do not believe I as a single man should adopt a child. The child should go to parents, a mother and father, to replace what the child had before.

There are exceptions to every rule and difficult cases. There may be a case of where a man previously had a child from a heterosexual marriage, the mother is off the scene and he and his gay partner have now entered a civil partnership. That type of relationship will have to be recognised.

A similar situation may arise in respect of a lesbian woman who may have had a child for various reasons, later became involved in a same sex relationship which became a civil partnership and died and the only person the child knows as a parent is the other woman to whom he or she is not related by blood. That is an exception. These issues will have to be addressed. It is our duty as a Legislature and that of Government to address them.

I do not know what is the solution. It may be for the Adoption Board to determine particular exceptional cases like that while upholding the principle that every child has a mother and father and is entitled inasmuch as possible to same.”

Leo Varadkar speaking on the Civil Partnership Bill in January 2010.

(Leah Farrell/Photocall Ireland)

Thanks Continuity FF

From left: RTÉ weather presenter Nuala Carey, Leo Vardkar and Leinster rugby’s Kevin McLaughlin.

Splutter.

Mmmm.

Health Minister Leo Varadkar launching the On The Dry fundraising campaign at Trinity College, Dublin encouraging “those who abstain from alcohol at this time of year to raise vital donations towards the fight against heart disease and stroke-the number one cause of death in this country”.

The initiative is supported by AIG Insurance and Dublin’s 98FM.

Take a hike Nuala.

Hic.

On The Dry

(Leon Farrell/Photocall Ireland)

Cian O’Daly and Henry

For the attention of Health Minister Leo Vardaker.

Dear Minister Varadkar

My son, Henry Bolger O’Daly, was diagnosed pre-natally 5 years ago as having Hypo-Plastic Left Heart Syndrome. He was born with the entire left-hand side of his heart missing. He has endured a series of arduous and painful surgeries in order to make his remaining right-hand side of his heart viable until such time that he is a suitable candidate for full heart transplantation. This will happen when he is older, please God. His is an alternative circulatory system, resulting in diminished blood oxygen levels. As a result, he gets very tired and sometimes ill from pedestrian levels of activity. Obviously, his condition is a life-long, incurable and chronic congenital heart defect. In lesser words, my son will never get better.

We applied to retain Henry’s medical card and just this morning we found out that it has been REFUSED. I fail to see how he could not be granted a discretionary medical card, given the fact that his monthly medication expenses are exorbitant. We obtained a letter from his cardiologist, Dr. Orla Franklin (Crumlin), to support his medical card application. The content of this letter sets out in no uncertain terms the gravity of Henry’s condition and is explicit and detailed. This alone should set alarm bells ringing in the Health Service that this citizen, my son, Henry Bolger O’Daly absolutely should be granted a medical card.

In the short time that he has been alive, Henry has experienced a great deal of trauma which is now manifesting itself in his everyday life. He is a very anxious child and is currently attending a play therapist, the cost of which is not covered by the medical card. We cannot afford to pay the monthly DPS charge and pay for therapy.

Can you please give me a call? I am desperately seeking your guidance in the matter.

Regards
Cian O’Daly

Cian O’Daly (Facebook)