Referendums: What exactly will we be voting on?

by Kate Heaney

ON Friday, March 8 voters in Donegal and around the country will cast their ballot on two proposed changes to the Irish Constitution, changing an almost 100 year-old definition of what family can be and women’s roles.

Coincidence or not, March 8 is also International Women’s Day!

Voters are being asked to cast their ballots on two separate family themed issues on that day.

The first concerns the concept of family in the constitution while the second proposes to delete an existing part of the constitution and insert new text providing recognition for care provided by family members to each other.

The referendum provides two separate votes on whether or not members of the electorate wish to make the proposed changes to the current text of Article 41 of the Constitution.

Over the coming weeks, information booklets will be distributed to 2.3 million households across Ireland.

According to Tanaiste Leo Varadkar the amendments will “reinforce the fact that Ireland is a modern, inclusive nation which strives to treat and care for all its people equally,”

The General Scheme of the Thirty-Ninth Amendment of the Constitution Bill (the Family amendment) proposes to insert the words “whether founded on marriage or on other durable relationships”.

The current protection afforded to families under the constitution, as currently written, only extends to married families.

These proposals extend this constitutional right to other lasting relationships and puts them on an equal footing with married families, according to the government.

Mr Varadkar stressed that “Our constitution will continue its history protecting both the family and the institution of marriage. Repurposing the wording, however, acknowledges the families may also be founded on lasting relationships other than marriage.

“For example, a family headed by a lone parent, or a family headed by a grandparent or guardian all of us know people who are committed to each other in a loving relationship over a sustained period of time, who are not married.”

The second vote relates to what is referred to as The Care Amendment. This proposes to delete the wording: “In particular, the state recognises that by her life within the home, woman gives to the state a support without which the common good cannot be achieved”.

If voted for this amendment will insert the following wording: “The state recognises that the provision of care, by members of a family to one another by reason of the bonds that exist among them, gives to society a support without which the common good cannot be achieved, and shall strive to support such provision.”

This article of the constitution is commonly referred to as a section about the “woman’s place is in the home”, which campaigners have long called for the removal of.

Making the announcement, Minister for Integration Roderic O’Gorman said that “a woman’s place is where ever she wants it to be”.

“The archaic reference to a woman’s place in the home has not been good for the lives of women in this country. The key is that women choose the roles they play in our society.”

Education Minister Norma Foley welcomed the proposed changes to update the constitution and said “the wonderful carers in our homes include both men and women.

There are families where it is the dad who stays at home and the mum works outside the home, families where one parent juggles children in childcare to part time employments, it can be tiring and relentless work,” she said.

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