Referendum on Gender Equality (THREADBANS IN OP)

That is bit that started to wind me up when I started to think about it properly, basically the family referendum as is - making the rights of the family way more complex, and likely worse as result.

I am not saying it might be as bad as the UK with Brexit. But there are so many potential issues that could arise that have no even been considered, given how vague it is with "durable relationships"

And then the "care referendum" seems like a made up even more wishy washy job than the "durable relationships" craic in the family referendum. No doubt the durable relationships (family amendment) will create new rights and new consequences, some unintended.

Whereas, the other (care referendum) does nothing really. I now strongly suspect that the care referendum was merely invented as a strategy to remove mention of women in the home. Because ideologically it ties in with the proposed family amendment.

That is the truth of it, they could put have put in solid rights for those providing care/receiving care with a much clear conferring of rights. mention of children/disabled/elderly etc.

But they didn't because they want to create the illusion of a nice neat bow - supposedly the broadening of the meaning of the family, removal of the status of marriage (as the foundation of the family) , and the removal of reference to "the mother."

The care referendum is not really about "care" in my opinion it is a meaningless line which is good strategy to further the agenda of certain vested interests who's main "prize" is the family referendum. A dirty trick IMO.

In reality for certain vested interests both referendums are tied ideologically to a Yes/yes. You need only look at Mary McAleese comments on the referendum-

Mary McAleese keynote address (Women's Council of Ireland) -

"I hope between us we not only will change the wording but will then stay with the issues that have been raised including by those who would wish the wording to go further. Far from being a final step I see this as the latest step of many on the road to the “farther shore” of full equality, full inclusion which will be easier to reach from Yes/Yes"

To me it is almost a sleight of hand trick by those who thought this up, and the cherry on top they put it on International Women's Day!

They must think the electorate are easily manipulated?

The Brexit vote had a relatively large turnout. But Britain is a different country.

The comparison here for Ireland is probably with the Children's Referendum which had about a 30% turnout.

My guess is the family one will pass, the other one will go down, both by very tight margins...

Every assessment by CEDAW on Ireland since 1985 has berated the government for not holding a referendum on the Article. Until this is removed, the government cannot force stay at home parents to enter the labour force and, God love them, shure the poor women don't realise how badly they're being discriminated! They just don't know how much happier they would be if they knew they could avoid being such under utilised economic units by joining the labour force and letting others raise their children.

They can though, and they did, and Joan Burton’s comments at the time aged like fine milk:

After a seemingly effective campaign run against these attacks on the One Family Payment by a coalition, including Barnardos and One Family, Joan Burton stood up in the Dáil, on April 18 2012 and said that the changes would not be made until we had a childcare system “similar to what is found in Scandinavian countries”.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/arid-20312087.html

Leo was as usual, unashamedly coy about it in an interview four years later 😂

AS FOCUS TURNS to next month’s Budget, Social Protection Minister Leo Varadkar appeared on Morning Ireland yesterday to discuss what might be in store.

And during the course of the interview, he claimed that “The One-Parent Family Payment wasn’t cut by the last government”.

A group called Spark (Single Parents Acting for the Rights of Kids) contacted us on Twitter, firmly disputing Varadkar’s claim.

So was the Minister right?

Claim: The last government did not cut the One-Parent Family Payment

Verdict: Mostly FALSE

https://www.thejournal.ie/one-parent-family-payment-changes-ireland-facts-2997502-Sep2016/

It's taken me awhile to come to a decision, but the remarks from Michael McDowell swung it for me in the end. I will be voting No-No.

I don't necessarily have a problem with re-wording of the constitution. The problem is that the proposed language being used is deliberately woolly and imprecise.

What we have today is certainly out of date, but at least it's precise. It seems like a big mistake to introduce something that could be interpreted in many ways and lead to all sorts of legal challenges for decades to come.

The family one / durable relationship is actually the most dangerous proposed change with all sorts of implications down the line.

The care one is just waffle replacing waffle and means little other than a few non committal words.

Be careful.

The main reason I think the family referendum has a better chance than the care one is it is sending a message that the great majority of people would be broadly in tune with, broadening the constutional conception of 'family' even if they have resrvations about the 'durable relationship' business. Whereas the care one doesn't have an 'attractive' proposition that you can boil down to a single line in the same way.

A short history.

CEDAW is important and the Government does get berated regularly about Article 41 but that has been going on for years. No one from the UN proposed the amendments we will voting on this Friday.

But it won't cause issues down the road for most people. The percentage of people who could be impacted by the range of outcomes is quite small. There's no real incentive for them to even make the effort to vote no. Although, I'm sure there will be a strong turn of married men who have mistresses. 😂

Wrong, and based on a bizarre notion of the UN and International Treaties. Do you imagine that the Government can sign up to a Treaty and then turn to the Irish people and say "you have to amend the Constitution because the UN doesn't like it"? Were you asleep during the referendums on the EU Treaties?

The Irish government completely ignored the recommendations of the citizens assembly, committee on Constitutional reform, FLAC, various care organisations etc. as to how to word the proposed amendments. Why would you think they would tell the Irish people that they had already agreed with CEDAW to hold a referendum on Article 41?

I have to admit I knew nothing about this until yesterday when I met up with an old friend who spent many years working in the EU and had many dealings with various UN bodies. He sent me a load of links this morning which I am still going through! So here's a start:

How it work is the government submit their report to the CEDAW committee explaining how they have progressed with the legislative reforms recommended in the previous CEDAW observation and CEDAW respond with their observations and recommendations. The first one linked here is from the first Committee response in 1999 and the second is the most recent in 2017

1999:

93.The Committee expresses its concern about the continuing existence, in article 41.2 of the Irish Constitution, of concepts that reflect a stereotypical view of the role of women in the home and as mothers. It is aware that amendments to this article are being considered by the Parliamentary Committee on Constitutional Reform.

https://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cedaw/docs/IrelandCO21st_en.pdf

2017:

11. The Committee urges the State party to, within a specific time frame: (a) Amend article 41.2 of the Constitution in order to remove the stereotypical language on the role of women in the home.

With reference to the Committee’s previous concluding observations(para. 380), please provide information on the steps taken to incorporate the provisions of the Convention into national law.....Specifically, please provide information on the concrete measures taken to revise article 41 (2) of the Constitution on the stereotypical role of women in the home and society

https://www.ihrec.ie/our-work/cedaw-2016/

Does anyone know if or when the government, as requested by CEDAW, provided information in regard to the "specific time frame" and what "concrete measures" have been taken to amend our Constitution? We the people were only told on the 6th December a week before the Dail broke up for their 5 week Christmas break!

So the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, a section within the UN, are calling the shots and putting pressure on our state to change our constitution? How are women discriminated against when we have all sorts of equality legislation to ensure that doesn't happen. This get crazier by the day.

These are the members of that committee who seem to be having enormous influence on how our country is governed.

https://www.ohchr.org/en/treaty-bodies/cedaw/membership

They can though, and they did, and Joan Burton’s comments at the time aged like fine milk:

I think that was the beginning of the end of the Labour party in Ireland. Crucially, this only applied to one parent familes. Stay at home spouses (men or women equally) could not be forced out of the home regardless of how old their children were.

That is why I suspect one of the first actions if Article 41.2 is voted out will be the removal of the qualified adult allowance for social welfare payments which will require low income stay at home parents be available for work if they want to receive the allowance. I'm pretty sure it will be followed by another attack on one parent families as all families have to be treated equally regardless of marriage as we just found out with the O'Meara judgement.

Hardly. Sure I could be run over by a car the next time I leave my house. I could use that to argue that I shouldn't ever leave my house as doing so could be dangerous. But most people realise that woukd just be stupid. Like this situation.

Personally I think who advised the government is in plain sight. Justice Marie Baker (of the electoral commission) gave a full page interview a few days ago.Complete with half page photo of her.

I think this is the article (paywalled) I read the physical paper copy.

It was one of those question and answer interviews, where her answers were written down verbatim.

I found it shocking to be honest as she spoke in glowing terms of the potential positive outcomes of the referendum and its wording.

Any negative questions she flippantly dismissed or said it is for future referendums. Basically she had an ‘answer’ for everything

And at the end finishes with decide which way you want to vote

—-

The tone of the interview comments seemed strikingly similar to that of Mary McAleese’s key note address to the National Women’s Council

There certainly seems to be a “team effort” going on.