Embassy marriages debacle has serious implications
What is proposed to be done about the reports in the newspapers today that thousands of marriages conducted at embassies in Dublin have apparently been declared invalid? Will the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, or the relevant Minister, respond to this extraordinary state of affairs, whereby hundreds of people who have lived in this country, many of whom have worked here, and got married in embassies in Dublin have been told that their marriages are, in fact, invalid?
If the shoe was on the other foot and this was occurring to so many Irish people living abroad, one can imagine the level of justified indignation and high dudgeon there would be both here and elsewhere. It is an extraordinary state of affairs, whereby people are finding, in some cases three, four or five years after they were married in Dublin, that their marriages are invalid. This will have very serious implications for them in terms of the recognition of their marriages in their home countries.