Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I will share time with Deputy Barry.

The Minister made it nearly impossible for us to be enthusiastic about this referendum. Many parties on this side of the House have played a key role in helping progressive referendums pass. I, like Deputy Cairns, worry that the Minister is not going to get this one passed for the reasons I stated earlier in that those in the far right have latched on to it to say it is undermining woman and women and promoting an agenda they says does not exist when they highlight their transphobia.

That is not my main point, however. My main point really goes back to how the Minister opened up his speech this afternoon. He said that when the Constitution was passed or when it was first produced, 1,500 women gathered in the Mansion House - working women, older women, younger women, cleaners, factory workers, civil servants - to oppose it. They have spent all those decades since living under this very vile constitutional clause, and we are finally getting rid of it. In fact, I was reminded by a friend today that back in 2011, during the austerity years, the then Government of Fine Gael and Labour brought in measures to force lone parents into the workplace and to cut their allowances.

Some of us argued at the time that there should be a constitutional challenge to that because the Constitution states that women should not be forced away from their domestic duties in order to work. It never happened. It would have been a negative and unprogressive constitutional challenge. Nevertheless, the Constitution was not adhered to by previous Governments when they wanted to cut back on the provisions they gave to women. Lone parents are mainly women. Some of the previous speakers cited statistics on this and I will not go over them.

What the Government has given us now, in 2023, after all those years opposing Article 41.2, is difficult to be enthusiastic about, mainly because of what is woven around care. It is great that care is recognised in the Constitution. Care should come before most other things in society. I am a big fan of the green new deal, as outlined by Naomi Klein, in which care and repair would get us out of climate catastrophe and create a different sort of society, one in which the emphasis would be on nursing, teaching and looking after each other, rather than on the production, buying, selling and advertising of goods that people do not need to live. Ms Klein puts that across well. I would place a similar emphasis on care but this proposal does not do so, in particular, when we consider the language in the context of the legacy of what went before - what the citizens' assembly and joint Oireachtas committee wanted.

To have the provision of care in the Constitution does not oblige the Government or the State in any meaningful way to support those who deliver the care. It only recognises care within the family whereas we tried to recognise care more widely than in the family, as did the citizens' assembly. This proposal is not sufficient to strengthen the rights of carers.

The Minister's use of language such as "strive to" jumped out at me. Everybody is asking where that term come from. I asked the Minister when he gave us a presentation on the Bill recently why he was using this word "strive" and why the Bill does not commit that the Government "shall provide" rather than "strive to". He told me we cannot force future Governments to do something they may not be able to deliver on. That is interesting because during Leaders' Questions yesterday, I heard the same mantra from the Taoiseach when Deputy Fitzmaurice raised with him the right of children with disabilities to access services. Here is what good old Leo said:

it is a mistake to think that the legal rights or UN conventions build houses or provide therapies. ... Creating legal and constitutional rights does not train nurses or build houses. ... it can actually backfire sometimes. That is because time and resources then get diverted into managing litigation, in paying lawyers and damages, rather than being spent on services.

That was the Taoiseach's answer on why the Government has not ratified the optional protocol to the CRPD.

I spoke to Bernard Mulvany today His daughter, a leading advocate for disabilities who is in a wheelchair, told me that the Minister launched a disability plan for the next three years today but, as far as those who are involved in it and are looking on are concerned, it was about reports, not delivering real changes for people with disabilities. As each of the reports that have been done shows, people with disabilities are increasingly impoverished, marginalised and left out of what goes on in this society.

According to Leo, the Government does not ratify protocols because it might not be able to deliver and the money would be spent on litigation instead of nurses and building houses. We do not have the nurses or the houses. We are not exactly up in the High Court or the Supreme Court every day in litigation over the Constitution. That is not the problem. To say that giving constitutional rights runs the risk of litigation and we do not have the resources to do the things society needs is a shocking way of dealing with this. The Tánaiste put across a similar argument - I could not find the transcript - on Leaders' Questions this morning when he stated we need to be careful about giving too many rights in the Constitution because it could have legal implications. That is more or less what the Minister told me last week - that we cannot put into the Constitution things we cannot deliver. Why do we have a Constitution and why are we bothering to have this referendum? We will probably spend a fortune on it anyway. Why are we bothering to sit here tonight, on the last Dáil sitting day before Christmas, talking about this if the Constitution does not put a framework on the legal rights of people? The wording used, "strive to", absolutely does not do so?

Let me contrast this with the rights provided for in the Constitution on private property. It is interesting. For care, the wording is "strive to". As for private property, the Constitution declares that the State will vindicate the property rights of every citizen. That means the right to own, transfer and inherit property, and the right to bequeath property upon one's death. The State guarantees to pass no law to abolish these rights. Therefore, private property has a superior place in our world to care, even though we are all today eulogising care and carers and saying we could not manage without them.

I do not accept the Minister's logic about why "strive to" will be used in the Constitution rather than a firm commitment that the State will take care of carers. We need that change in language and we will propose amendments to that end.

The Minister has disappointed women, particularly women of my generation and older, knowing that we have lived for years under this abhorrent constitutional clause. He is removing that clause and then giving us this. It is difficult to be enthusiastic about this debate and these changes and it will be impossible to be enthusiastic about a referendum.

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