Alan O’Reilly is a political activist based in London.
There is mounting concern in Dublin about the prospects of two referenda taking place in early March. These referenda relates to changes to the constitution that deal with the family.
Ireland has a written constitution, Bunreacht na hÉireann, introduced in 1937 replacing the constitution that had been written and enacted upon independence. Unlike the United States, where the constitutional change seems to occur upon the whim of their Supreme Court, substantive changes to the constitution can only take place following a plebiscite, which is conducted via a referendum
There have to date been 38 amendments put forward. Some have been high-profile, such as the marriage equality act or the abortion repeal referendum, which garnered so much national and international media coverage.
Others have been relatively mundane: mong the many that have passed or failed without many outside of Ireland noticing are the creation of a new court of appeal and changes to local election timelines.
The pace of referenda has picked up in recent years partly, but not wholly, because of the citizens assembly, of which I have written before. This is essentially a grouping of people empowered to make proposals for improvement to the constitution and governing structure of Ireland. The government is required to consider (but not to enact) these recommendations.
Which bring us too today. The coming referenda cover two broad areas both relating to article 41 of the constitution, which sets out the definition of the family.
The first amendment deals with the current definition of the family, and proposes to expand it to “whether founded on marriage or on other durable relationships”. The second is amendment deals with the role of women and proposes to delete a specific reference to women, which says the state should promote a women’s work in the home, and replace it with wider reference to care by members of a family of one and other.
At the outset of this debate these seemed, on the face of it, to be agreeable, uncontroversial amendments. In relation to the role of the women, for example, the constitution currently says the state should “endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home”.
Most would agree that the language is archaic and not at all reflective of the modern world in any way. Proponents of the referendum argue that the language is limiting for women and has had a detrimental effect on their position in society for generations.
When it comes to the role of the family, the change to “founded on marriage or on other durable relationships” has opened all sorts of questions as to what precisely a durable relationship is.
These are not esoteric or philosophical questions: as durable is not defined, it will be essentially up to the supreme court to decide what it means. This could lead to all sorts of unintended or unexpected impacts on inheritance law, tax, and other areas.
Every major political party is united in support of these proposals. But will cut little ice with the Irish electorate, which time and again has shown itself more than willing to shoot down what were considered at the time fairly uncontroversial proposals, such as the referendum on lowering the minimum age for presidential candidates or abolishing the Seanad (Irish upper house).
Defeat has generally occurred when voters are unclear as to the proposed benefits and support in the political system, while united, appears half-hearted. This often leads to a much lower turnout, which can lead to a position (already being advocated by opponents of the referendum) of vote no if you don’t know.
The situation is not, yet, irretrievable. But ministers will need to give both proposals strong support to ensure the result is not another embarrassing defeat for the government.