TERFs and the Irish referendum

[theDudesmummy]

Could any kind Irish MNer break down for me the reasoning around how a TERF should be voting in the referendum on 8 March? I am not usually thick but I am struggling to get my head around it, and would also like to explain to fully TERFy DH. (We are British, not Irish yet, not fully steeped in all the ins and outs of Irish politics. We moved here in 2020, and we have the right to vote in referendums here). Thanks!

For the more knowledgeable how/can the 2012 legislation which allows SAHP's claim stamps to qualify for full pension impact?

That clause was a solid basis not to impact on mothers who stay at home to challenge the system for financial support in later years.

Many people (mainly women) got pittance and financially struggled when they were older as they did not have enough.

Basically I am wondering was the government about to hammered in a court challenge which they were advised they would lose which brought that change. Bringing the change meant they could control the start date and therefore not have huge payout reward claims

FFS

Why is it always women

Magdalene laundries
Mother & Baby Homes
Hepatitis C, anti D
Cervical Check
Symphysiotomy (not sure of spelling)

Could more there are just the recent scandals that jumped into my head.

The word "durable" is even less clear than "enduring" would have been. There are a number of posters using "enduring relationships" but that's not what has been proposed. "Enduring" would point to the fact of having lasted/endured (and still doing so). "Durable" points to some possibility that it has a quality associated with being lasting/enduring. It couldn't get much fluffier. If they have specific relationships and circumstances in mind, they should name them. If they don't they can feck off thinking I'll vote for something they can't/won't define. They were well capable of specifying the legislation that would follow Repeal. They have chosen not to do so with this amendment. I do not trust them to have considered the consequences of the amendment (and if they have they're not telling us what they are). I've lived with the fall-out of constitutional amendments relating to abortion. And more recently the consequences of the GRA (2015). They gave no thought to the consequences for women there and this is the same collection of half-wits.

I'm a No/No.

The only person I've heard give in any way a definition of what durable could be is current supreme court judge and head of the referendum commission, according to her a way to prove a relationship will be durable is if they get wedding invitations and christmas cards together https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/politics/durable-relationships-could-be-defined-by-a-couple-getting-a-christmas-card-says-chair-of-electoral-commission/a1922458908.html

I think whats even more nonsense is that ROG etc seems to imply that there needs to be a romantic element for it to be a durable relationship even though to my mind that doesn't figure into what a durable relationship is at all, ROG said that adult siblings who live together would not be classified as a durable relationship. In reality he has no way of knowing what the Supreme Court will decide a durable relationship is and its nuts to leave it up to them to decide.

I was talking to a friend about it and shes been going out with a new fella for about 3 months, they recently got a joint invite to a party, lets say she dies, is he now entitled to her estate? They haven't considered any of these questions

100% agree. It is just bonkers. ROG has been spouting on that “we all have an idea” “we all know” what we think is a family. How stupid is the man that he thinks we all hold the same idea in our heads AND that the courts will interpret a specific wording to mean the same thing as this idea that we magically all hold in our heads. He’s an absolute idiot.

https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2024/02/15/electoral-commission-to-address-uncertainty-over-next-months-referendums/
https://archive.ph/vyHkP

According to the chairwoman of the referendum commission Ms Justice Marie Baker post referendum the logical next step is that the Oireachtas defines durable relationship and then the courts interpret it.

I mean how is it logical that we vote on a term we have no idea of the meaning and then the Oireachtas ascribes meaning, which may not be binding given the Supreme Court could overrule it if they deem it too narrow

Also am I wrong or has no one in the Government ever said they do intend to legislate about this and they seem flummoxed when asked to define it?

The referendum is three weeks away.

it is scandalous that it’s going ahead with so much still needing clarification. €3m to “explain the issues” is too little too late

Rather susprising she has no issues with the "durable relationship" in the definition of family one.

Opinion piece in The Irish Independent by a woman who cares for a relative.
https://m.independent.ie/opinion/comment/regina-lavelle-this-absurd-and-useless-referendum-wont-help-carers-like-me-one-little-bit/a287494390.html

"What families like mine desperately need are proper services; what we are being offered instead is pantomime."
...
"The proposed change would achieve nothing — by contrast, it is quite simply word erasure. It will not improve the lives of women — it will not improve the lives of male carers either — rather it removes the single acknowledgement of the work we do on behalf of the State. It is an insult to women like me whom the State treats as nothing more than a taxable unit. And all the better if we don’t have children, so that we might have more hours to care for other loved ones.

How much better it would have been had the Government spent the €20m-odd outlay on this referendum on real services for carers who need them, instead of the po-faced rhetoric we are offered?"

...

"Those families can share stories of their myriad daily indignities, coming face-to-face with endless penny-pinching bureaucracy that stonewalls services. The grinding phone calls and letters. The wondering just how much you might have to debase yourself to land that next necessity. The cul-de-sacs of care when you realise there really is nothing else. The cold wash of total powerlessness.

It is like living Edvard Munch’s The Scream. This is our reality.

And yet — somehow — the priority, the solution, is to take the word woman out of the Constitution?"

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/social-affairs/2024/02/19/legal-body-criticises-implicitly-sexist-referendum-on-carers-in-blow-to-yes-campaign/

https://archive.ph/WGH3I

FLAC has come out against the care referendum and for the family referendum but with reservations about the lack of definition or proposed legislation around the durable relationships bit

"It expressed concern that the likely legal consequences, and benefits to diverse families of the proposed amendment, “have not been explained adequately to date”.
It called for publication of draft legislation setting out what relationships came within the definition of “durable relationships” and the changes the amendment would require, it said. If the referendum succeeded and such legislation was not introduced, diverse families would have to go to court to have their new rights defined and given effect to, it said."

"In relation to the “care” amendment, Flac said it was “highly regrettable” voters did not have the choice to simply delete the so-called “women in the home” provision “which is ineffective, sexist and offensive”. Voters were instead asked to replace it with a new article 42B concerning “family care” with wording “just as ineffective”, Flac said.
This is unlikely to provide carers, people with disabilities or older people with any new enforceable rights or to require the State to provide improved childcare, personal assistance services, supports for independent-living, respite care or home or school supports for children with disabilities, it said.
Article 42B would “give constitutional expression to harmful stereotypes” such as the concept the provision of care is the private responsibility of unpaid family members without any guarantee of State support.
The proposal endorses “a status quo where women undertake the bulk of unpaid care work and places no obligation whatsoever on the State to redress this gender imbalance, rendering it an implicitly sexist amendment”."

I don't know how widely this case has been discussed but it does seem a bit of a coincidence that the proposed wording waters down the state's obligations.

@Mermoose

I saw something about that case recently, I was wondering if that case has had something to do with this.

Let's face it, the length of time cases take to get to Court this is hardly a coincidence.

This case wins and state is on the hook just like with the widower's pension win recently.

This referendum is about saving money, it is always about saving the state money.

Everything government does is about money.

While at the same time dangling money pretending like there will be a mandate to fund services only if theres a yes vote, like anything with the current wording is preventing them from properly funding care.

What they've announced this week about SNAs in schools shows that they have no intention to actually fund services for disabled people. Insist on mainstreaming everyone and then cut the hours for special needs children, which will effect the special needs child and everyone else in their class https://www.thejournal.ie/special-education-teaching-hours-norma-foley-6299482-Feb2024/

I don't know, I think for members of the Citizens Assembly it's about addressing sexism. I do wonder how many of the people who initially called for it to be changed are happy with the proposed wording.

Childcare and home care are, economically, externalities and the state does need to recognise them & support carers. It's an underappreciated & vital job and we should be working to elevate rather than denigrate it. The overwhelming majority of people doing that work are women and that should be recognised.

The subtext of the campaign for Yes seems to be that care work is undignified and by pretending women aren't the ones doing it we can somehow get rid of the effect homecare has on women's prospects.

@Mermoose

We can agree to disagree.

It is irrelevant what the assembly think or suggested it is the government which settles on the final wording.

And I believe ultimately the government has more information than the assembly and you or I, and IME all roads led back to saving money

Mermoose
I don't know, I think for members of the Citizens Assembly it's about addressing sexism. I do wonder how many of the people who initially called for it to be changed are happy with the proposed wording.

I agree, there are probably a few who are wondering how it ended up in such a mess.
I read somewhere that in a similar way, the advice from consultations surrounding the GRA back in 2015 was to have a medical model, which the government then rejected at the last minute in favour of Self ID. So they are not beyond using sneaky tactics to push through what they want.

More human rights organisations coming out against the care ammendment
https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2024/02/20/care-amendment-criticised-by-independent-living-movement-ireland-and-irish-council-for-civil-liberties-in-further-blow-to-yes-yes-referendum-campaign/

https://archive.ph/JAHh7

Catherine Martin squirming when asked about the head of the referendum commission saying she was wrong about what she tweeted about the referendum

https://twitter.com/griptmedia/status/1759628851406045486

@Dublincailin I suppose I don't really disagree with you - there are certainly people in government who will want to save money. I just think more broadly a lot of the support for the amendments is well-meaning and badly thought-through.

Well, I'm sticking to my guess of something to do with surrogacy. I see at least two recent articles in the Irish Independent about how buying babies from impoverished women is a feelgood story that needs to be facilitated better by the state. So it definitely feels like softening us up for something.

It's interesting to compare two articles written by the same person, a solicitor called Mary-Frances Fahy. In the first, she writes why she will be voting Yes/Yes, and says there is nothing to lose by treating unmarried families the same as married ones. (She also says this will enable to us to treat same-sex relationships as equal which is bizarre as we have same-sex marriage).

https://m.independent.ie/farming/rural-life/mary-frances-fahy-why-im-voting-yes-its-long-overdue-recognition-for-tens-of-thousands-of-other-family-units/a1248815721.html

In the second, she is responding to a farmer who asks her whether he should marry his workman so he can leave his farm to him without the workman having to pay inheritance tax. All of a sudden there are a lot of potential downsides to exchanging an unmarried relationship for a married one. (Screenshot is from this article).

https://m.independent.ie/farming/legal-advice/i-want-to-leave-my-farm-to-my-workman-i-read-about-two-fellas-marrying-to-avoid-inheritance-tax-could-this-work-for-me/a220485133.html

The question now is, does his relationship with the workman count as a "durable relationship" under the law. I would argue that it certainly could.

Accidentally de facto marrying your long term employee through propinquity. What are the chances, etc?

Careful who you work for, it's rough out there.

I had to google propinquity. It is a nice word. Thank you for introducing me to it.

Not at all. I'm trying word of the day with DD and I've been looking for my chance to use it!