On Friday the people of Ireland voted on marriage equality in their referendum. The results on Saturday showed that 1,201,607 people voted Yes/Tá to 734,300 voting No/Níl making the result 62.1% to 37.9% in favour. Only one of the 43 constituencies, Roscommon – South Leitrim, voted no but only by a margin of 1,029 votes and barely nibbled into the overall trend of the votes that were being announced. The other forty-two constituencies had all by either a small (only 33 votes in Donegal South West) to a large (27,959 in Dublin South) margin voted yes. Overall 1,201,607 people voted Yes/Tá to 734,300 voting No/Níl 62.1% to 37.9%.

But the other question is where does that leave Northern Ireland, which is now the largest region of the British Isles that does not have equal marriage in any shape or form allowing people of the same-sex to marry?

Firstly if we look at the Northern Ireland Act 1998 it recognises that the people of Northern Ireland can identify as British or Irish or both. This is key now to moving forward. Then from the same piece of legislation we also note that:

Section 75 and Schedule 9 to the Northern Ireland Act 1998 came into force on the 01 January 2000 and placed a statutory obligation on public authorities in carrying out their various functions relating to Northern Ireland, to have due regard to the need to promote equality of opportunity –

• between persons of different religious belief, political opinion, racial group, age, marital status or sexual orientation;

• between men and women generally;

• between persons with a disability and persons without; and

• between persons with dependants and persons without.

In addition, without prejudice to this obligation, Public Authorities are also required to have regard to the desirability of promoting good relations between persons of different religious belief, political opinion, and racial group.

Bearing in mind that people can identify as Irish or British in order to promote equality of opportunity for those LGBT people who identify as either or both they must also have the same promotion of equality for their marriages as anyone else. We cannot carry on not recognising all GB or RoI marriages and downgrading them as civil partnerships, that is not promoting equality of opportunity on marital status or sexual orientation.

On Saturday night post Eurovision I was out in Belfast’s gay area and LGBT people of whatever other identity were celebrating the result from the Republic of Ireland. If unionism does not live up to their statutory obligations on this now in the Assembly there could well be a legal case to take this higher to the UK Supreme Court or Europe.

* Stephen Glenn is the Chair of the Northern Ireland Liberal Democrats and a member of the Alliance Party. He has stood as a Westminster Candidate for the Lib Dems on three occasions.