Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

That point is important, particularly in the discussion on the recommendations of Article 40.1 about what we elevate to a constitutional level. At the risk of slipping back into law lecturer mode again, the right to equal treatment between men and women under EU law was always within the treaties as a fundamental right while nearly all other fundamental rights were not included in them originally and only came in with the Charter of Fundamental Rights. The Senator is making a point about the recommendation on enshrining non-discrimination on gender grounds into the Constitution, but what about non-discrimination on grounds of sexuality, membership of the Traveller community, race or the like? That is part of the wider discussion.

As to what my Department has done since the recommendations were received, the recommendations on Article 41 on the family are an issue for my Department and the Department of Justice, but my Department has gone through all of the work that has been done so far. As a number of members have mentioned, it is a significant body of work. We have looked to make it available to the committee and everyone else so that we can try to avoid going down the route of arguing about why we are doing this or that. There is a large body of information available on the consequences of each route, be it full deletion, deletion and replacement or so on. These are some of the issues that this committee might be able to take the time to tease out and, I hope, reach agreement on. I may be doubling down on this point, but I have a fear of a politically divided outcome on a referendum, the referendum being lost and us continuing to have women's place in the home reflected in our Constitution. It is a genuine risk, so I hope doing this will allow everyone at some point to work together and shift from initial positions.