Paul Hopkins: Amendments could have been better considered

I am old enough to remember when a woman married, she had to give up her job in a State or semi-State company. The Constitution which describes a woman's life “within the home” is arguably sexist. Article 41.2 does not give any rights to women, provide any protections for them or been the source of any benefit, resulting in advancement of women's rights. The Constitutional amendment will be changed to be made gender neutral to recognise that care is both a woman's and a man's responsibility.

The long-delayed referendum on care is supposed to take what was considered offensive and dated and turn it into something that will aid carers in a proper way. But, under the new amendment, the Government would only have to “endeavour” to support carers within the home — wording that effectively means nobody could ever win a legal argument for the State to give stay-at-home carers real and practical support.

Women will be most affected by the amendments. According to the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, women spend double the time of men on caring and more than twice as much time on housework.

A substantial gender gap persists even among men and women doing the same amount of paid work. And the Central Statistic Office Life At Home report finds that the burden of childcare and domestic responsibilities is felt strongest by women.

The Government is proposing the deletion in its entirety of Article 41.2, despite the fact that Supreme Court Judge (and former Chief Justice) Susan Denham has said 41.2 does not assign women to a domestic role. In a 2001 ruling, Justice Denham said: “Article 41.2 recognises the significant role played by wives and mothers in the home. This recognition and acknowledgment does not exclude women and mothers from other roles and activities.”

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar wants “to amend our Constitution to enshrine gender equality and to remove the outmoded reference to women in the home”. Every stay-at-home mother has just now learned, appallingly, that their life choices are outmoded. Dismissing the tough task of raising the next generation as outmoded is akin to saying parenting is a thing of the past. The Taoiseach seems to have forgotten that two out of three Irish mothers would prefer to stay at home and raise their children if, if, they had the choice, according to a survey by Amárach Research. Let's not get into childcare costs and low pay or three out of four children waiting for scoliosis treatment, according to Kathleen Funchion TD.

According to the Yes advocates, Article 41.2 has had a significantly bad effect on women's lives. Orla O'Connor, director of the National Women's Council of Ireland (NWCI), said last month that the article “gives the State the oppressive role of keeping women from careers or employment of our own”.

Cue, Justice Susan Denham.

Many quote the first part of Article 41.2.1 about how “woman through her life in the home” gives to the State “a support without which the common good cannot be achieved”. But often omit to mention that Article 41.2.2 – as first noted by The Citizens' Assembly and an Oireachtas committee – says the State “shall endeavour (sic) to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home”.

Would the amendment to Article 41.2 update that language, retaining the recognition of the value to society of women's work in the home and that promise by the State to “endeavour to protect, in case of economic necessity, a mother's right” to choose to stay at home to raise her children? I don't think so, citing lack of a State role in childcare. The amendment will remove Article 41.2 altogether, replacing it with wording that offers little to the gender-neutral 'carers' who will replace women and mothers, and weaken the protection offered regarding “economic necessity”.

My Editor asks me to make some sense of it all. Some task.

My biggest fear about the amendments is to insert “durable relationships” into the Constitution: it's such vacuous wording and, if nothing else, ignores a single parent rearing children. We don't know how the Supreme Court would define a “durable relationship”. If nothing else, “durable relationships” copper-fastens the presumption that families involve more than one adult.

I am voting No for these referendums as currently confusingly worded. The wordings leave the amendments too open to being challenged in the courts – in terms of welfare, taxation, succession, and family law.