A "GREY area" surrounds the legal status of marriages in the coming months, the Fine Gael backbencher, Mr Alan Shatter, has warned.
If people who married during that period sought a divorce it could be said their marriages were invalid because of failure to comply with the new family law, which requires three months' notice of marriage from August 1st. An applicant for divorce could be forced into a nullity contest because of uncertainty about the three month requirement.
Dependent spouses could be left without the financial protection they otherwise would have, Mr Shatter told the Dail Committee on Security and Legislation. He urged that the Divorce Bill be amended to remove any doubt about the validity of forthcoming marriages.
The Minister for Equality and Law Reform, Mr Taylor, said the three month requirement had been widely publicised and church leaders had been informed.
In cases where partners wanted to shorten the period the courts had given exemptions, but Mr Shatter said this was strange as he understood the courts' powers did not come into effect until August 1st.
The Minister said his advice from the Attorney General was that no change in the Bill was necessary.
The Fianna Fail spokesman on equality and law Reform, Dr Michael Woods, moved an amendment that implementation of the three month notice requirement be postponed until December, "but this was defeated by 12 votes to 10.
Another Fianna Fail amendment sought to require spouses to show that they had attempted reconciliation and to produce a certificate to this effect before a court granted a divorce decree. Dr Woods said the Bill's provision that legal advisers be obliged to give the names of mediators to divorce applicants could be little more than an empty formula.
Mr Taylor said that getting a document signed saying the partners had attended reconciliation meetings would serve no useful purpose. The Bill envisaged that counselling would be entered into on a voluntary basis. The amendment would add another layer of bureaucracy, the Minister added. It was defeated by 11 votes to 9.
Mr Eamon O Cuiv (FF) asked that the Bill be amended to require the court granting a divorce to fully examine the position of children and take their views into account. It should be possible for a judge to refuse a decree where he believed it was not in the interests of all the parties.
The referendum proposal put to the people envisaged divorce as a last resort but he believed the Bill was dismantling that proposal. The courts should be allowed to make "an informed decision" on whether divorce was appropriate in individual eases.
Dr Woods said he would be proposing the appointment of a statutory commissioner for children who could report to the courts in divorce cases. Debate on the Bill resumes today.