But protecting that wealth can be a serious headache when the law is stacked against you. Just like straight people who choose to cohabit rather than get married, gay couples are at a serious disadvantage when it comes to inheritance, taxes and pensions.

Michael McDowell has promised to address the problem by legislating for civil partnerships . . . not quite gay marriage but an arrangement that would at least iron out many of the current financial inequalities.

In the meantime, the justice minister will be keeping a close eye on a legal challenge being taken by a lesbian couple, Katherine Zappone and Anne Louise Gilligan, against the refusal by the Revenue Commissioners to recognise their Canadian marriage for tax purposes. The case is due to be heard in the High Court in the autumn.

Most gay people get their first brush with financial discrimination when buying their first home. The mortgage is the easy bit. The real problem lies with mortgage protection, a life insurance policy that protects the bank by paying off the mortgage if the home owner dies before the debt is cleared.

The banks will normally insist that you have mortgage protection before they will give you the loan. But this can be a costly requirement, for men in particular, because insurance companies regularly load the premiums on the basis that gays are high risk. The result is that mortgage protection can cost as much as the payments on the loan.

The process can also be hugely intrusive, sometimes including HIV checks and medical examinations, with the gay person under subtle pressure to "come out" at every stage of the house buying process process.

"When I went for a mortgage with my own partner, I found myself having to come out in all sorts of little ways . . .

to my bank, to my solicitor, to my mortgage provider, " says Donna Tuohy, the brains behind Rainbow Finance, which claims to be Ireland's first exclusively gay finance company. "The question that was silently or sometimes overtly posed was: is this woman my friend or my partner?"

Gay rights campaigner, Senator David Norris, has helped gay house buyers to challenge successfully their treatment by the insurance industry before the Equality Authority.

"I recently helped out a young man who was facing a huge loading and all sorts of intrusive questions about his sex life with his partner, " he says. "The insurance company eventually backed down and dropped the loading. It's extremely counterproductive to be loading people who've done the responsible thing and taken a HIV test. It's insane."

Because all of its customers are gay, Rainbow asks none of the awkward questions encountered elsewhere.

According to Ney Kindlon, managing director of Kindlon Insurances, the backer of Rainbow: "We can take a more conciliatory view to underwriting mortgage protection and also other types of insurance such as critical illness and income protection. Insurance companies can hit you with a barrage of questions that can be awkward and difficult to respond to respond to.

We can anticipate those questions and circumvent them being asked in the first place."

Kindlon does not claim that Rainbow is any cheaper than other insurance brokers. But he says it keeps a close eye on the way insurance underwriters react to gay applicants.

"Certain underwriters were known to be awkward in the past but they are now willing to take a different view, provided they have enough information to understand what they are being asked to quote for."

Once they have settled into their home, the next financial problem facing gay people, and indeed all cohabiting couples, is discrimination in the income tax code. By juggling the tax bands, it is possible for married couples with one income to earn up to 41,000 a year before paying tax at the top rate of 42%. But gay couples in the same position would fall into the top tax bracket once their income exceeds 32,000, resulting in a higher tax bill of 3,780 a year.

The numbers get even bigger when it comes to inheritance. Inheritances between married people are completely exempt from tax, no matter how big the estate. Inheritances between gay couples are clobbered with 20% tax on anything over 23,908, a threshold just about big enough to keep a couple's car out of the tax net.

The consequences for individuals can be tragic, as demonstrated in a case highlighted by Norris a number of years ago. It involved a man in his 70s who, after a diagnosis of Parkinson's disease, decided to sign over his home to his partner. The financial problem began when the partner died first, triggering a huge inheritance tax bill when the house reverted to its original owner.

"The poor unfortunate was left grieving for his partner, suffering from a debilitating illness, and with a tax bill for 350,000 on his own home, " says Norris.

The law has since been changed so that anybody who inherits a house where they have lived for at least three years escapes the tax, irrespective of their relationship with the person making the inheritance.

Norris was instrumental in pushing for the change but says it did not go nearly far enough. "It's only patching and mending, " he says. "The whole area needs to be looked at urgently."

Norris is not holding his breath, given the record of government foot-dragging when it comes to legislating on social issues. But the government will have a gun to its head if Zappone and Gilligan win their case in the autumn.

JOHN POOLE, a 45-year-old English language teacher, realised the financial costs of being gay in 2001 when he bought his home in Dublin's Blackpitts using a mortgage from First Active.

To get the loan he needed mortgage protection insurance, which would pay off First Active if he were to die before repaying the debt in full. But when the insurance company realised John was gay, it wanted detailed checks on his medical history, including a HIV test, which turned out negative.

Even then it wasn't happy and loaded the premium against him, so the insurance would have cost John almost as much as the monthly mortgage payments.

And the insurance company refused point blank to quote for critical illness cover, an extra insurance policy that would have paid a lump sum if John fell ill with heart disease, cancer or any other serious medical condition.

John felt trapped by a system he believes is designed to trip up gay people.

"As far as the application forms are concerned, the questions are loaded against you if you are a single, gay man, " he says. "I didn't realise until it was too late that, the more I told them, the more I was digging myself into a hole."

After some pressure, First Active eventually relented and agreed to give John the money without mortgage protection cover.

"The branch manager was very helpful and, looking back, I suppose you could say it was just one of the hiccups that go with buying a house, " says John. "But it led to a couple of very tense days."

John says he would not have escaped so lightly if he had bought his house with a partner because the lender would probably have dug in its heels and insisted on mortgage protection.

This is because, if John were to die without cover, a partner would have been left to shoulder all of the mortgage payments alone.