Professor Siobhán Mullally:

I thank the Senator for her questions but we have commented on them. To reiterate, our position is that the Constitution should be amended to recognise and support care work. This would provide a constitutional framework within which decisions around resource allocation could be made to ensure care work is supported in the context of family relationships. The decision in N.H.V. v. Minister for Justice was given as an example of how courts engage with questions on socio-economic rights, as our Constitution does in other contexts. Any rights vindication issue, such as the right to a fair trial, requires the State and the Legislature to engage in difficult decisions on resource allocations. Any question on rights, whether we categorise them in a rather traditional way as civil and political or socio-economic, requires an allocation on the part of the State and decisions about resources. The adjudication by courts will also inevitably lead to those consequences. We need a framework within which those decisions are made to effectively vindicate that right.