Zappone and Gilligan v. Revenue Commissioners

The plaintiffs, two Irish women in a same-sex relationship, married in Canada and sought recognition of their marriage in Ireland or alternatively the right to marry in Ireland. The Registrar General had declined to make a declaration on the validity of marriages that occur outside the State, stating that this was a matter for the courts under Section 29 of the Family Law Act 1995 (2019 version available here). The respondent Revenue Commissioners rejected the plaintiffs’ claim to their allowances as a married couple under the Taxes Consolidation Acts, stating that “Revenues interpretation of tax law is that the provisions relating to married couples relate only to a husband and a wife.” The plaintiffs sought judicial review of that decision. The Court found that the right to same-sex marriage did not exist under Irish Constitution or the European Convention on Human Rights, and consequently the plaintiffs’ claims for recognition of their Canadian marriage and their challenge to the Tax Code must fail. Article 41.3.1 of the Irish Constitution required the State to guard the institution of marriage with special care. The continued relevance of this decision is affected by subsequent changes to Irish law. The Thirty-Fourth Amendment to the Irish Constitution legalized same-sex marriage which is now regulated in law by the Marriage Act 2015.