Divorce Action Group supporters protest at the lack of legislation dealing with marital breakdown.
About 30 people take part in the protest, many holding placards highlighting the problem of marital breakdown and the absence of legislation to deal with it.
In a symbolic act, Divorce Action Group (DAG) members Heather Aylward and David Herman chain themselves to the railings of Government Buildings. Heather Aylward has been separated for ten years and David Herman for eight. They feel they are chained to their defunct marriages.
The demonstrators are angry that divorce is not even on the agenda for the cabinet meeting in Government Buildings where ministers are discussing future legislation. They say the only action the government has taken on reform is to set up the Oireachtas committee on marital breakdown,
But that now seems to have been a delaying tactic.
Heather Aylward would like to see a referendum on divorce and appropriate legislation drawn up. David Herman explains the only options available currently are,
Church annulment, which pretends a marriage never took place, or a foreign divorce which is of dubious legality.
DAG chairperson Jean Tansey believes a divorce referendum in Ireland would be successful,
I think the vast majority of people in the country have had some experience of marital breakdown.
She thinks Irish people understand that separated individuals need legal recognition for something that has already ended.
An RTÉ News report broadcast on 11 January 1985. The reporter is George Devlin.
