The Health Minister has said that whatever rules the Catholic Church, or any other church, wants to make around marriages is their own business.

Leo Varadkar was speaking as a group of health professionals united to call for a Yes vote in the referendum on marriage equality later this month.

The Minister said today that the referendum is about civil marriages and has nothing to do with church marriages.

“Whatever rules the Catholic Church and any church decides to make it’s their own business and it’s their own prerogative to make their own rules,” Mr Varadkar said. “That will remain the case after the referendum,” he added.

“20 years ago Ireland voted to bring in divorce and to allow people to get divorced and have the right to remarry and it remains the case twenty years later that nobody has forced the Catholic Church or any church to remarry people in the church against their own doctrine,” he said.

The head of the Catholic Church in Ireland, Achbishop Eamon Martin, has said the Church has not yet decided if it would continue to offer the civil element of marriage if the referendum passes, although he did say “clearly it is an issue for us”, in an interview with RTE.

Mr Varadkar’s comments echo the comments of Tanaiste Joan Burton who yesterday said: “That’s a matter and a decision entirely for any church ... whether they will have a registration process. That’s entirely a decision for them and I totally respect whatever it is they wish to do in that respect.”