No Stumbling into the Flowerpot Now As Enda Plots Collision Course with Church

Irish Independent
November 6, 2013

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/lise-hand-no-stumbling-into-the-flowerpot-now-as-enda-plots-collision-course-with-church-29730433.html

THE high-ups in the Catholic Church must wonder betimes if the fairies tiptoed into Enda's room on the night he was crowned Taoiseach and left a changeling in his place.

For instead of getting a head of government who set his face firmly towards a conservative agenda while paying unquestioning obeisance to the church, they were landed with a leader who delivered a landmark eloquent denouncement of the Vatican's response to child sex abuse scandals – in his excoriating address to the Dail on the Cloyne Report in 2011 – and who oversaw the passage of abortion legislation through the Oireachtas this summer.

And if this wasn't enough for the religious hierarchy, Enda Kenny's Government has now announced that a referendum on same-sex marriage will take place sometime in 2015.

Again, this social issue wasn't allowed to nestle on the back-burner, after the Constitutional Convention recommended by a large majority that the Constitution should be changed to allow same-sex couples to have a full civil marriage and not just a civil partnership.

The Tanaiste in particular has pushed for this referendum, describing it previously as "the civil rights issue of our generation" and the noise from the Labour Party increased considerably after Eamon Gilmore flagged the matter last weekend.

But how would the Taoiseach react to the clamour from the junior coalition party?

For in the past it's a subject on which he has studiously avoided giving his personal opinion.

It was by no means a certainty that Enda would endorse such a move.

After all there was a notorious incident which became known as 'flowerpot-gate', when during a doorstep interview last year the Taoiseach appeared to lose his footing, almost falling into a large flowerpot as he attempted to avoid answering questions about his personal views on gay marriage.

However, the question was answered in an unequivocal fashion last night.

Once the Cabinet decision was announced, it was clear that Enda would have to finally make a statement on where he stood on the issue.

But it didn't arise during Leaders' Questions in the Dail, with opposition deputies focusing on the continued confusion over the payment of the Local Property Tax. Later in the evening, he was due to address a group of entrepreneurs to mark the announcement of over 200 new jobs at an event in the Royal College of Physicians – although how the Taoiseach was going to seamlessly segue from employment and innovation to same-sex marriage was an intriguing prospect.