An Irish Future for Malta?

An Irish Billboard used by the 'yes' camp in 1995

Recently the group “Le B’Rispett Lejn il-Ġejjieni” found an article written by David Quinn, director at The Iona Institute, an institute well reputed for its love of the family as an institution.

David Quinn recently wrote about the situation of divorce in Ireland and this within the context of our national debate which Quinn claims to be following with keen interest.

The group “Le B’Rispett Lejn il-Ġejjieni” recognizes that the proposal with which Malta is faced is modeled on Irish legislation. The same group also recognizes that Malta and Ireland share a number of similarities and that hence it would not be incorrect to study Irish statistics.

In 1997, when divorce was introduced in Ireland, there were 94,433 cases separation. This number has risen sharply by over 100% to now total 198,592. Whilst the group “Le B’Rispett Lejn il-Ġejjieni” accepts that this result is influenced by a whole plethora of factors, it is most certainly no accidental combination that the sudden sharp increase coincides with the introduction of divorce in Ireland.

In 1996, a year prior to the introduction of divorce in Ireland, the number of cohabitating couples stood at 31,298. Just ten years later, namely in 2006, this rate stood at 121,763. Yet again the group “Le B’Rispett Lejn il-Ġejjieni” believes that an increase of around 400% since the introduction of divorce in Ireland cannot be dismissed as being merely an accidental combination.

Indeed the director of The Iona Institute which director is also an opinion writer in The Irish Independent states the following about those campaigning in favour of divorce in Malta:

“Will Malta’s pro-divorce advocates support policies aimed at promoting marriage? Will they support social marketing campaigns extolling the benefits of marriage and discouraging cohabitation? Will they state publicly that it’s better on average for children to have a married mother and father? I stress “on average” because, obviously, there will be some bad married parents…. Will they put all of this now before considering the introduction of divorce?”

He concludes by bringing in the Irish experience bearing in mind the circumstances in Malta by saying, “Those campaigning for divorce should therefore put all their cards on the table now or else Maltese can logically conclude that for all their talk they don’t really value marriage at all, except as a purely individual choice of no special social significance and that those who are campaigning against divorce are its true custodians”.