Which Referendum was most signifigant?

Peter Frankes

Which Referendum decision had the biggest impact on irish society? Was it Rome,Amsterdam, Nice or any of the others?

bonkey

Would you like to offer your own thoughts on the subject....as the forum guidelines ask you to?

Alternately, an explanation as to the reasoning behind the question might be acceptable, if its not something you wish to discuss but rather something you wish to collect the thoughts of others on.

jc

PH01

Congratulations on ur first post on Boardsie Peter.

The Referendum on the Constitution can't be ignored. Without that were would we be?

The Divorce Referendum had a major effect on Irish society. It lifted the Church yoke off the people and separated Church from State.

And the Referendum on the Threaty of Rome which brought our little country truely into the modern age.

arcadegame2004

In my opinion the Maastricht Treaty 1992 had the greatest impact, in that the Celtic tiger followed it. In my opinion its abolition of tariff barriers helped pave the way for the 10-fold increase in annual exports from Ireland we have seen since then - especially important since Ireland, with a tiny domestic market, is heavily dependent on the export-sector, which constitutes 70% of our GDP. I feel that economic factors are relevant to this question since the economy impacts on society.

seamus

PH01 wrote:

The Referendum on the Constitution can't be ignored. Without that were would we be?

Most, if not all referenda have been on the Constitution Or were you referring to the one about enacting the constitution? That indeed can't be ignored.

Irish history has not been my strong point, having only taken an interest in the last 3 or 4 years, but I would have to say that the divorce referendum was quite important. It was one of the first real indicators of cultural and moral change in this country.

I wouldn't cast aside the abortion referenda either. If anything they showed us the growing ethical and moral divide in this country between the cities and the rural areas.

Irish history is on my "to read" list, underneath a whole lot of other things that I was taught in school but have forgotten. Now I wish I had paid more attention. Youth is indeed wasted on the young.

MadsL

Citizenship referendum;

This marked a watershed in Irish attitudes towards emigrantion/immigration. It starkly highlighted how zenophobic Irish society has become and the singular failure of Irish society to become in anyway accepting of its multicultural reality or to accept that diversity can have any benefit to Irish society.

A striking example of this is that the Equality Act 2004 fails to enshrine the complete right of equality for anyone to goods and services without being discriminated against on the basic of race, nationality or sex - whilst claiming to implement the EU Race Directive 2000/43/EC. Compare these two statements;

This Act amends the Employment Equality Act 1998 and the Equal Status Act 2000. The Act transposes into Irish Law three EU Equality Directives; the Race Directive (2000/43/EC implementing the principle of equal treatment between persons irrespective of racial or ethnic origin), the Framework Employment Directive (2000/78/EC establishing a general framework for equal treatment in employment) and the Gender Equal Treatment in Employment Directive (2002/73/EC amending Council Directive 76/207/EEC on the implementation of the principle of equal treatment for women and men as regards access to employment, vocational training and promotion, and working conditions). The opportunity was also taken in the Act to provide for a number of procedural amendments to the Employment Equality Act 1998 and the Equal Status Act 2000.

Contact Department: Department of Justice, Equality & Law Reform

Signed by the President on: 19.7.04

From the directive itself;

(12) To ensure the development of democratic and tolerant societies which allow the participation of all persons irrespective of racial or ethnic origin, specific action in the field of discrimination based on racial or ethnic origin should go beyond access to employed and self-employed activities and cover areas such as education, social protection including social security and healthcare, social advantages and access to and supply of goods and services.

Read McDowell's announcement of the changes
http://www.cidb.ie/live.nsf/0/9feeb9630c17625780256edd0032184c?OpenDocument
And the Act itself
http://www.oireachtas.ie/viewdoc.asp?fn=/documents/bills28/acts/2004/A2404.pdf

The Equal Status Act of 2000 specifically makes all sorts of exemptions, none of which are rescinded by the amendments of 2004. Among these are ;

differences in the treatment of persons in relation to annuities, pensions, insurance policies or any other matters related to the assessment of risk where the treatment—

(i) is effected by reference to—
(I) actuarial or statistical data obtained from a source on which it is reasonable to rely, or
(II) other relevant underwriting or commercial factors,
and
(ii) is reasonable having regard to the data or other relevant factors,
http://acts.oireachtas.ie/en.act.2000.0008.3.html


Which means that if your are a johnny foreigner you can be shafted all they like by insurance companies and there is NOTHING in the law to prevent this.
Hence my Quinn Direct thread...

It also means if you are male, young and from Dublin, Limerick etc etc they can also legally shaft you too.

Don't you love this interpretation of 'equality'.

Peter Frankes

Apologies for the bare nature of the initial question. My purpose was to see what the opinion was on which referendum decision had the biggest impact in terms of social change. The initial enacting of the constitution of course, but things like the one on Divorce and how that helped to move on attitudes about the nature of the Family and bring them in line with modern neo-liberal thinking.
How did the passing of the one on travel and information fit in, did that freeze attitudes for some other day.
Was it all down to Masstricht that we have the current Economic growth situation and the inequality issues that go with it?
Would we have had the mind to pass it without confronting the trad Catholic ideals passed on to us in the preceeding referenda?
Or did Masstricht ensure that we had no other option but to look at our attitudes to Homosexuality, Human Rights, Role of Women etc.?(the basic building blocks of society as we accept it in the developed world)?
I think that the key is beliefs, in particular, the religious catholic conservative way of looking at moderenity and development. Where and when did we start to think that non-secular government and society was preventing an evolution of attitudes required to be part of Europe?
Would anyone give a toss if there were no referenda, like in Germany?

Pf

Victor

Independence, Constitution, Rome.

Admittedly, Citizenship is a turning point, but I'm not certain if its that important in the scheme of things.

MadsL

Citizenship is a turning point, but I'm not certain if its that important in the scheme of things.

I would say that nothing more clearly defines a culture than it's attitude to those who are outside it. Look at how America built a nation out of a rag-tag of immigrants. If Ireland fails to embrace the inevitable change to a multicultural society, it will fail as a society. Trust me, its important.

De Rebel

Economically - the 3rd amendment (1972) allowing the state to join the EC. S.E.A., Mastricht, Amsterdam, Nice were all extensions of that.

Socially - the 15th amendment (1996) which introduced divorce and the 4th amendement (1973) which reduced the minimum voting age to 18 were very important. Important for the wrong reasons, the 8th (1983) 13th and 14th (1992) (all abortion related) and the two failed abortion referenda - the 12th (1992) and 25th (2002) - all showed how narrow minded and short sighted we can be. And the 27th (2004) "Citizenship" referendum also showed how intolerant of others we can be.

Politically - the 19th amendment (1998) which amended Articles 2 and 3 as required by the Belfast Agreement closed a 75 year old chaper in Irish History. Important for the wrong reasons - the 17th amendment (1997) which enshrined the daft doctrine of "cabinet confidentiality"

arcadegame2004

Peter Frankes wrote:

Apologies for the bare nature of the initial question. My purpose was to see what the opinion was on which referendum decision had the biggest impact in terms of social change. The initial enacting of the constitution of course, but things like the one on Divorce and how that helped to move on attitudes about the nature of the Family and bring them in line with modern neo-liberal thinking.
How did the passing of the one on travel and information fit in, did that freeze attitudes for some other day.
Was it all down to Masstricht that we have the current Economic growth situation and the inequality issues that go with it?
Would we have had the mind to pass it without confronting the trad Catholic ideals passed on to us in the preceeding referenda?
Or did Masstricht ensure that we had no other option but to look at our attitudes to Homosexuality, Human Rights, Role of Women etc.?(the basic building blocks of society as we accept it in the developed world)?
I think that the key is beliefs, in particular, the religious catholic conservative way of looking at moderenity and development. Where and when did we start to think that non-secular government and society was preventing an evolution of attitudes required to be part of Europe?
Would anyone give a toss if there were no referenda, like in Germany?

Pf

I think that inequality is inevitable in any capitalist society. But at least the poor have become richer since the vastly increased taxation-revenues accruing to the Government have led to much higher social-welfare payments. I don't really think it is realistic for anyone to expect the Government to be able to increase social-welfare benefits in line with economic-growth. In line with inflation - yes - but not in line with economic-growth. I don't think economic growth should be opposed because of the possibly increased levels of inequality. The best way out of poverty is to find a job, and economic growth is the best way to ensure we can find one at a good wage. But it is unrealistic to expect everyone to be able to march in step in terms of wages, because conditions differ in different kinds of markets, and sectoral downturns will occur from time to time e.g. falling demand for PC's. I often feel that the argument about "rising inequality" is misleading in that it suggests there is some way of preventing inequality in a capitalist market-economy. There ISN'T. Economic-inequality is mostly a fact of life. The bosses of multinational companies are always going to earn more than a mere employee. But in a way, Michael McDowell was right when he said inequality was an incentive in the Irish economy, because the desire to make loads of money entices entrepreneurship which in turn provides more jobs when the enterprise succeeds. The only kind of economic-inequality that I really think can be realistically combatted and lessened is the pay-gap between men and women for doing the same job as well as pay-discrimination against ethnic/religious minorities for doing the same job.

I think that the European integration process contributed towards the erosion of the theocratic nature of many of our laws, e.g. contraception ban, homosexuality ban, divorce ban, since it forced us out of the isolation of the De Valera years and into greater awareness of how much more free a liberal, secular society is. No longer will we be told what to do from the pulpit. Especially considering what we have found out about some of those pulpit-preachers in the past decade and more.

Peter Frankes

The poor heve become richer???? Basic macroeconomics will tell you that inflation on clothes,food,light and heat far outstrips rises in welfare, so in fact the opposite happens, the poor get poorer.

McDowell did not take care to specify that he was talking about Economic inequality, some idiots will take him at face value. McDowell is a careless prat.