Thread from 6th March 2024
Yes campaigners have argued that legal language about a woman's "life within the home" or a mother's "duties within the home" are antiquated and have no place in modern Irish society.
"It was at the heart of cruel, discriminatory policies, such as the marriage bar, which forced women out of their careers once they got married," said Orla O'Connor, director of the National Women's Council.
This is a lie: the marriage bar existed in Victorian times and was prevalent in many European countries:
Orla O'Connor is director of the NWCI, the National Women's Council of Ireland, which is 96% State funded. It's also the body which
- signed a letter in 2020 calling for new grassroots women's groups to be denied political and media representation when we started to mobilise
- includes a man who "identifies" as a woman on its board and
- says "By ‘woman’ we refer to any person who identifies as a woman."
What Art 41.2.2 actually does is provide a "direct obligation" on the State to protect mothers from having to work outside the home, should they choose to care for their own children. This article is to be cited in a leap-frog appeal to the Supreme Court, bypassing the Court of Appeal on April 11th by the mother of a severely disabled adult son who wants the carer's allowance not to be means tested as it is currently, depriving her of €85 per week.
In addition, both of these amendments were rushed through the Oireachtas (Houses of Parliament) with
- no pre-legislative scrutiny
- debate guillotined
- no amendments accepted and
- 64 pages of interdepartmental notes refused to an FOI request
Regarding the "durable relationships" amendment the Government expects citizens to vote to put this new legal term into our Constitution despite being either unwilling or unable to define what it means and what consequences this may have for taxation, inheritance, family law etc.
There's a plethora of information on these referenda for those who wish to find out more: see @lawyersforno@BirdyBooky@TheCountessIE@griptmedia@ColetteColfer but the elephant in the room is as spelt out by former President Mary McAleese last week:
