Heads-up, kids: the Civil Partnership Bill’s Committee Stage resumes tomorrow, Thursday, 27th May 2010 at 10:00am.

You may remember when the Committee sat in March, that it examined the majority of proposed amendments to the Bill. Time was against them, however, and the Committee had to adjourn with a view to examining the remainder of the proposed amendments at a later date.

So, here we are. In case you missed the initial sitting of the Committee, pretty much all of the proposed amendments were rejected other than those proposed by the Minister for Justice and Law Reform, Dermot Ahern, T.D.

Notably, The Irish Times recently reported that the Cabinet approved amendments to the Bill, including part of the Bill which affects both same-sex and opposite-sex couples who cohabit. It appears that these new amendments will be put forward at the Committee. Distinct from the florists’ amendment, one of the new changes appears to be a farmers’ amendment, given that there was much complaining from the IFA and the ICMSA over the duration of cohabitation required in order to potentially be eligible rights over property and other matters.

To tune in:

• The debate will be streamed live from Committee Room 2 on the Oireachtas website here.

• Readers can comment here with your thoughts.  Anyone can also comment via their Twitter account by including the hashtag “#cpbill“.

• UPDATE: A Live Blog has been set up on the ScribbleLive website – here. Anyone can comment there, whether logged in or not.

Most previous posts on the topic of civil partnership and of marriage equality can be found here and here.

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