Mr. John Dunne:

To qualify for the carer's allowance, a social welfare payment paid at a rate slightly higher than unemployment benefit, carers are required to demonstrate that they are providing a consistent 40 hours per week of care for a medically diagnosed condition. One could argue that under this proposed constitutional provision, we could charge in and say that one only has to be providing five minutes of care. I am happy to point out that this is not where we are coming from. I assume any state would argue that the wording, "shall endeavour", is an unreasonable claim. It could be argued that the requirement to provide 40 hours of care should be reduced to the average working week. In principle, however, the State has the right to regulate how it will manage its finite resources. There is no question that it must do that. This is as much about the symbolism of removing a provision from the Constitution. If it was not in the Constitution, we would be having a very different debate about whether it would be worth inserting it. Our biggest concern is the sort of message we will send if we remove the provision.