Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I fully support the proposal to amend the Constitution to provide for a more inclusive concept of family in Article 41. The realities of family life in Ireland in 2023 are vastly different to those in 1937 when Irish law and our society only recognised the traditional model of the family based on marriage. The results of census 2022 clearly demonstrate how family life changed in the 20th and 21st centuries. I will mention some of the main findings. There were almost 1,280,000 families in the State on census night of 2022. Among those families, the average number of children was 1.34. Almost 220,000 family households or 17% of the total were headed by one parent. This includes more than 186,000 one-parent families headed by a mother and more than 33,500 one-parent families headed by a father. The number of same-sex couples was nearly 10,400.

There have been some significant reforms to Article 41 of the Constitution relating to the family, as a result of amendments that have been approved by the people in the past 30 years. The first major change was the 15th amendment to the Constitution in 1995, that removed the constitutional prohibition on the enactment of legislation to provide for divorce. The minimum living-apart period was removed from the Constitution in 2019 with the 38th amendment and the living-apart period under the Family Law (Divorce) Act 1996 was reduced to two years by the Family Law Act 2019. When our Constitution came into effect in 1937, the idea of two people of the same sex being permitted to marry was almost unthinkable. At that time, sexual activity between consenting male adults was a criminal offence and this regrettable situation remained until the enactment of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 1993. Even then, the concept of marriage equality was a long way from social or political acceptance in Ireland. Progress was made with the introduction of civil partnerships for same-sex couples in 2010. In May 2015, I am delighted to say the Irish people voted by a substantial margin to amend Article 41 to provide that marriage may be contracted in accordance with law by two persons without distinction as to their sex.

While all these reforms have made substantial improvements to our constitutional framework relating to family life in a modern, diverse Ireland, Article 41 continues to afford protection only to the marital family. It does not take account of other durable family relationships which are also so deserving of recognition and protection. The amendments to Article 41 proposed in this Bill will build on the constitutional reforms and the really positive progress that has been made in recent years by recognising and affording constitutional status and protection to families beyond the marital family. While the amendments seek to extend the protection of Article 41 to encompass other durable and committed relationships, they will of course not remove the special protection for marriage. The amendments will instead ensure the Constitution recognises families beyond those based on marriage. These amendments, together with the Care Referendum Bill which proposes to delete Article 41.2 relating to the role of women and to insert a new Article 42B to recognise family care, reflect our ongoing work towards a more compassionate, more inclusive and more equal Ireland. I wholeheartedly support and welcome this referendum. I hope we have a positive outcome.

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