A prominent Catholic bishop said yesterday he had no difficulty with the State providing civil divorce for couples whose marriages break down.
Bishop of Killaloe Dr Willie Walsh said he maintained the ideal of marriage being a lifelong loving relationship, "but I will not stand in judgment on people for whom that hasn't proved possible".
"I don't know their story and I would not stand in judgment on them so I don't have difficulty with the State providing a service to people whose relationship has broken down."
A decade after a narrow majority voted in a referendum for the introduction of divorce, the latest figures show that 4,126 divorces were granted in 2005.
This was an increase of 23 per cent on the 2004 figure and the highest to date. Since divorce was introduced, 22,427 divorces have been granted.
Dr Walsh said in an interview: "Very often in the past people stayed in dreadful relationships, where there was a great deal of violence and no person should be expected to stay in a relationship which is highly abusive.
"No person should be expected to stay in a relationship like that; nonetheless we can't deny the fact that the best place, that the ideal thing is a lifelong loving relationship between two people. It is best for themselves and best for their children.
"All the time, church and indeed State should try to do all we can to promote that. That is not in any way to stand in judgment on people who find themselves in situations for a variety of reasons unable to cope with that ideal. Indeed, church and State ought to do all they can do to assist and support them."
Dr Walsh said he still believed that 99 per cent of people entering marriage wanted to have a lifelong relationship. "I don't accept what sometimes people say, that 'people walk out of marriage today without thought'. There may be a very, very tiny minority who walk out of marriage very easily.
"I never have come across anyone coming out of marriage without a great deal of pain and without a great deal of brokenness. People don't run away from marriage, they realise that it is an enormous step."
The provisional figures relating to divorces granted in Co Clare last year showed that there was a 26 per cent drop on 2005 and Dr Walsh said: "I don't think that suddenly people are going to run away from marriage and the figures bear that out.
"There were predictions when divorce came into this country that suddenly marriage was going to go out of fashion. It hasn't gone out of fashion and I don't foresee it going out of fashion.
"What the vast, vast majority of people want is a lifelong marriage and all the indications are that lifelong marriage is certainly the ideal for people's own happiness, for giving a stable, secure environment in which children grow up.
"There is a great deal of pointers in our society that marriage today is the best place for children to grow up within. We have developed into a situation where one is almost afraid to say that 'marriage is best' because in some way you are being interpreted as suggesting that single parents aren't doing their job.
"That is not saying that. A great deal of single parents are doing a very good job and are doing their best, but we can't get away from the fact that marriage has proven and is still proving the ideal way to bring up children in a safe, secure, loving environment between two parents.
"In my view, that is not going to change. All across the western world, there is evidence that marriage is not at all as stable as it was in the past and there are a thousand different reasons for that."
