The youth section of the Green Party yesterday delivered a petition in support of same sex marriages to the Minister for Justice and will use its annual conference this weekend to highlight the issue.
The party leader, Mr Trevor Sargent, told the opening of the Young Greens' National Convention in Dublin last night that the party's TDs supported the youth section's campaign. "Civil union arrangements are a minimum requirement" for gay couples, he said, "but denying the right to marry. . . denies them their full and equal rights."
Mr Sargent said the membership of the Young Greens had grown to over 1,000, from just 400 in 2003. "It is clear that the policies of the Green Party have much more appeal to younger people than those of the mainstream parties," he said.
Mr Sargent called for Government support for the release of Ms Ingrid Betancourt, the founder of the Green Party in Colombia who was kidnapped in 2002.