A ruling was handed down in August 2017; Judge John Ailbe O'Hara discovered in opposition to the couples and determined that there were no grounds underneath case regulation from the European Court of Human Rights that the couples' rights were violated by Northern Ireland's refusal to recognise their union as a marriage. Two couples, Grainne Close and Shannon Sickles and Chris and Henry Flanagan-Kanem, brought the case claiming that Northern Ireland's prohibition on identical-intercourse marriage breached their human rights. In Talbot (in any other case Poyntz) v Talbot in 1967, the prohibition was held to extend where one partner was a publish-operative transsexual, with Justice Roger Ormrod stating: "Marriage is a relationship which is determined by sex, not on gender". Department of Justice and Law Reform. Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (January 2012). "Report on Reasons Behind Voter Behaviour within the Oireachtas Inquiry Referendum 2011" (PDF). Two YouGov polls in December 2012 discovered that 55% of the inhabitants have been in favour of introducing identical-sex marriage. A poll printed by YouGov in March 2012 showed that 43% of British folks supported similar-sex marriage, whereas 32% supported civil partnerships, and 16% had been opposed to any legal recognition of same-intercourse relationships.
