Referendum!

[springbrigid]

Anyone inclined to give an opinion? I am leaning towards a yes/no vote, the yes to remove what I see as sexist language in the constitution, the no because the government are so appalling in terms of providing services and rights to disabled citizens and I feel the clause is paternalistic and pushes care on families yet again

I'm voting No/No.

I'm not really sure tbh. I have to look into it more. There has been very little about it.

The 1st one - so would this grant better protections to families that are not married? A lot of people don't want to be married but are in partnerships for 10+ years with DC they should get widows pension etc be able to share tax credits.

2nd - so would it give better protection to dads/ aunts etc who look after children? Or would it try and get women back to work quicker after birth?

I'm voting No/No

If people want the legal protections that marriage brings then they should get married! There's no excuse imo, anyone can get married now including gay people so it's a choice you have to make.

No/no for me too.

You can't "marry" people without their consent.

I'm voting to leave things alone because home caring credits were an acknowledgement of the fact that it's harder for women to get 2080 paid contributions. How would this stand if we cannot acknowledge that it is women who end up out of the work place for longer.

Also, childrens benefit goes to the mother as a defaultatm. If we cannot even acknowledge that women give birth which squeezes them out of the workplace longer, then will mothers in the future end up pleading with their partner for their share of the childrens benefit.

It's all creeping towards homogenising men and women but it's still women who have kids and need a few accommodations.

No and No here.

If the women in the home was just a straight deletion, I would vote yes. However, the current wording has done nothing to protect women and has been used in the past to their detriment (e.g. marriage ban). I see no benefit to replacing it with wooly, feel good wording that will do nothing to benefit carers and/or women and we don't know how it might be interpreted in ways that are detrimental to carers/women in the future.

The second one is a no because of the nonsense phrase "enduring relationship". What is that? It could be interpreted in any way at all. We saw with the 8th Amendment the appalling consequences of wooly, non- specific wording. I'm not voting for anything that is not clearly defined. They could easily use marriage or civil partnership or cohabiting for a specified time etc. They haven't so it's a No from me.

There has been a lot of discussion of this on the Gender Critical in Ireland thread. I'm No No for reasons I explain there. I'm particularly wary of the carers one, which seems designed to enable the State to foist more responsibilities onto extended family and even friends - I give an example of one case I knew where a couple decided not to marry specifically to avoid the heavy responsibilities one person had chosen to take on being transferred to their partner in the event of their death.

I’m No/No.

I don’t want woman and mother written out if the constitution. Yes it is sexist wording, but it is better to a knowledge the reality that mothers are the primary carers of babies and in almost all instances, of children, and of adults who need care for any reason. I do not trust this government to protect my rights so I will not sign any more over to them.

In the second case, I argued in favour of marriage equality as I believe marriage is an institution which grants rights and responsibilities to those who freely consent to it. I agreed with Leo Varadkar et al. That this was so special it was worth changing to ensure those in same sex relationships could avail of this special protection. Now he is trying to tell me that I was wrong and that actually I need to make sure that everyone whether they want to or not, is determined to be in a marriage like relationship. What will happen to widows or widowers who don’t want t to remarry in order to pass the family home on to their children? What will happen to divorced men and women (and I know quite a few) who don’t want to marry again because of the financial implications. I do not want this or any other government to be able to decide that I am in a durable relationship against my wishes.

It is interesting that the more people know about the content of the referendums - I always prefer the old fashioned referenda - the more likely they are to vote no. So we all need to get out and inform, inform, inform.

No/No

The clause on "durable relationships" fails to define what that means. I will not vote for a pig in a poke. If the government has particular relationships or situations in mind it should have specified what they are. They were well able to be explicit about the legislation that would follow a yes vote to allow for abortions in Ireland. There's no reason they should not have done the same with this. Add to that, people who choose to not get married have that right. The state shouldn't then be deciding things about their relationship that they chose not to decide for themselves. Massive over-reach.

On the "care in the home" I'm in agreement with Tom Clonan and others in the disability sector. This is pushing care responsibilities back on the family and away from the state and it is particularly egregious when looking at disability "services". The suggestion made by ROG that this clause would "allow" the govt to provide better services is a bare-faced lie. They could provide those services now and are choosing not to and nothing in this clause will change that. The clause as is may be a bit dated but to bring it up to date all they needed to do was add "fathers" to "mothers" and "men" to "women". That said, no modification or erasure of the clause will change the fact that women do most caring and indeed all other forms of work within the home. That isn't because of the clause and it won't be changed my changing the clause.

Very well put. Voting no/no too for the same reasons.

Also this government is shambolic yet they are all united & hell bent in passing this referendum.
Nothing they do or want is for the good of the Irish people.
They all want big jobs in Europe & want to appear progressive. It's a big No & No from me.

Sure none of them could answer "what is a woman when ask"!
As a mum to three daughters I want the current legislation remaining.

@Iloveshihtzus agree with all your points. I'm sick of telling people who are on the fence or don't understand the underlying agenda "if in any doubt or confusion just vote No!"

I'm thinking No/No too, PPs on this thread have put it a lot more clearly than I could.

I asked that question re CB on the thread in Craicnet. How will it impact on women. It was introduced for mothers to collect as way of ensuring the children would be fed.

Is this a way of allowing both mothers and fathers claim the same payment?

It was only in 2012 (I think) that legislation was written for stay at home parents (mainly women).

Before that it was entirely contribution based.

I know it is CIC, but if I'm reading this right the CB entitlement is recognition for pension contributions.

www.citizensinformation.ie/en/social-welfare/irish-social-welfare-system/social-insurance-prsi/homecaring-periods-scheme/

Also if CB is split, the knock on for other secondary allowances is there.

One example, child's medical card for separated or single parents goes to CB collector.

How will that work?

I saw SPARK last week as part of the NGOs campaigning for yes.

All she had was basically

Single parents families are not in the constitution and it hurts, so vote yes.

How is taking away the word mother going to make that hurt feeling go away?

Having been a single parent family I can tell you the Constitution and our non-appearance in it did not cross my mind ever!

I agree that it's woolly and aspirational, but I do think the recognition of durable relationships (eg unmarried parents, single parents) is fine, particularly as we have marriage between two people regardless of their gender in the constitution now.

So there's two votes, each involves changing two clauses which in itself is confusing. I am not against 2a below, but I am against 2b so I feel I'm being forced to vote no

1A
CURRENT WORDING
Article 41.1.1° “The State recognises the Family as the natural primary and fundamental unit group of Society, and as a moral institution possessing inalienable and imprescriptible rights, antecedent and superior to all positive law.”

AMENDED WORDING “The State recognises the Family, whether founded on marriage or on other durable relationships, as the natural primary and fundamental unit group of Society, and as a moral institution possessing inalienable and imprescriptible rights, antecedent and superior to all positive law.”

1B
AMENDED WORDING CROSSED OUT
Proposed to change Article 41.3.1° by deleting text shown with line through it:
“The State pledges itself to guard with special care the institution of Marriage, on which the Family is founded, and to protect it against attack.”

Voting no for this change:

CURRENT WORDING

2a
Article 41.2.1° “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.”

2b
Article 41.2.2° “The State shall, therefore, 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.”

AMENDED WORDING (just a single clause)
“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.”

I'm voting agains (2) for the same reasons as Tom Clonan - the Irish government continues to act disgracefully in terms of disabled people's rights and continues to fail to provide services. To me, the wording is deeply paternalistic and pushes caring responsibilities back on to the family, and usually de facto girls and women. Tom Clonan has been told the government will not support his disability rights bill, and Ireland is the only country in the EU that does not have legislation covering disabled people's rights.

Roderic O'Gorman made a horrific statement that it will give parents the right to take the state to court if it fails to provide supports.
https://www.rte.ie/news/2024/0209/1431482-care-referendum/

So putting the onus on carers to have to fight for everything to improve a person with a disability life.

So long drawn out court cases with dirty tactics that will be designed wear carers down.

No different to what happened with families of special needs children.

m.independent.ie/irish-news/inquiry-sought-as-department-of-health-is-condemned-over-dossiers-on-autistic-children-involved-in-legal-actions/40240409.html

Seriously it just seems to worse every time I dig a bit deeper

Exactly @3timeslucky
I raised my child as a single parent and the clause never entered my head.

. I know all too well how much the Health professionals try to push
caring duties onto families and the community, and how they try to evade
their own responsibilities

Recognising 'durable relationship's is going to increase the pool of people that they can put that onus for caring onto. The person I mentioned before who did not marry their partner so as not to incur responsibility for their business, elderly parent and severely disabled adult sibling. Another person I know who has chosen not to marry so as not to incur caring responsibility for their new partner's disabled adult sibling.

If people want to marry they can, we decided that in a referendum, rightly so. But if people have chosen NOT to marry, for their own good reasons, I find it deeply sinister that the state is trying to manoeuvre them into a position where they have duties of care (enforcable via the taxation system) that they have not looked for.

I am also disturbed at the way the government is getting on with legalising 'assisted dying', even as the horrors of the way Canada is using killing people as an alternative to providing them with care, welfare, or even housing, are coming to light. We know that gender got pushed into legislation on the back of the marriage referendum - I'm very wary of what is going to be pushed after this one.

The powers they be refuse to answer if a polygamous relationship will fall under a durable relationship.. If a man coming into the country or already in the country has 2 wives that may be seen as lawful in the courts under durable relationship.

https://www.tiktok.com/@griptmedia/video/7329535423439457569

Watch Éamon Ryans take on polygamous relationships in the above video! It doesn't give much hope, they havn't a clue! He says its up to the courts however Roderic o Gorman says a polygamous relationship won't be recognised so they are completely contradicting each other!

And now this:

Apparently "the department’s “flawed opinion” was that to allow access and publish these minutes would be “premature” and might impinge on “the integrity and viability of the referendums”, as “public officials could be seen to promote” referendum outcomes in breach of what the Departments says are the McKenna/McCrystal Principles." - oh but NGOs spending our money and pushing a yes vote wouldn't??