Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire. These were supposed to be referendums related to gender equality, yet here we are with two Bills, one on care and the other on family, which would appear not to advance anything for people's practical day-to-day needs but which remove the words "mother", "home" and "woman" from the Constitution, and gut the meaning of "family". The mystery of how we ended up here is compounded by the fact that we have not had pre-legislative scrutiny on either of these Bills. My friend and colleague, Senator Warfield, talked about the risk that people would be misinformed or exposed to misinformation. It really looks like, looking at this in all honesty, the State is trying to minimise the risk that people would actually be informed about what this referendum contains.

The lack of respect for our Oireachtas process on show here, with it going through three Stages in the Dáil in one day and four Stages to be got through this week, is an absolute disgrace. When one considers the way the Constitution is amended, it is a compact between the people who have the final say and the legislators who decide what is to be put in front of them. What is going on with many issues these days is massive insiderism. It is not the entire Government, but a coterie within the Government, certain NGOs, and certain people on the inside, who get to decide what the people must think, and there is to be minimum discussion, analysis, scrutiny, criticism and amendment of that by the directly or indirectly elected representatives of the people. Here, the Government shows its absolute disrespect for the people of Ireland in going about these referendums in the way it is.

That insiderism is sadly on show in many different ways. I was disappointed to get the news from the National Women's Council of Ireland today that the launch of its "Yes" campaign is to be chaired by the person who launched the Citizens' Assembly on Gender Equality, Dr. Catherine Day. It is so disappointing to see that people have no sense anymore of where they ought to remain strictly independent and impartial and to stand back. It seems that "independent" means whatever people want it to mean these days.

Some supporters of these Bills are annoyed that the wording is not strong enough, especially with regard to care, which I will come to in the separate debate. What Deputy Catherine Connolly said is worthy of note in that regard because it applies here too. This is not about delivering meaningful, enforceable rights and stronger constitutional protection for women, families and carers, as well as other groups who experience discrimination and disadvantage, such as people with disabilities; this is about focusing on symbolic recognition alone. The Government is very bad at solving people's day-to-day, real problems. It is very good at trying to notch up symbolic victories for the people who are on the inside track within government.

There was plenty of time to do this right. Last February, the Department of equality opened consultations with the general public.It has hidden the outcomes of those consultations from us. They were not even available to the library to help it prepare its digest on the Bills. The Minister has not made any commitment that these outcomes will be available before the referendum. Will he make such a commitment? What is there to hide? What has the Minister to hide? On a number of occasions he has spoken in the Dáil of the advice received by the Attorney General in the drawing up of the Bills. Will he share that with us or has he anything to hide? No prelegislative scrutiny is taking place. This is following on a decision at a hastily convened private meeting of the committee on children a couple of days before Christmas recess. What is there to hide? Now we have two rushed Bills taking three Stages together in an afternoon of the Dáil and four Stages in the Seanad, giving nobody any time to read the digest prepared for us, never mind propose amendments. What is the rush? What is there to hide?

We are dealing with vitally important matters and this is no way to do business. This is no way to treat the Constitution, our basic foundational document. We legislators want to be clear on what we are adding. We want to be clear on what we are excising. We want to know the consequences of our actions. At the moment, few legislators do. What does the Minister expect the electorate to understand when it has made its decision on 8 March?

The family amendment devalues marriage, in my view. It equates the rights of a family based on marriage to those persons in a durable relationship and a durable relationship the Minister cannot define. He is clear in his mind, or so he says, what he would like it to include or exclude, and he has said that in the Dáil, but what are important are the words of the Constitution and how they may be interpreted. The word durable, insofar as our courts have made a ruling, does not necessarily mean durable in time and nor, indeed, is the relationship to be limited to two people. As far as I can see, despite protestations to the contrary, and I am not saying that is the Minister’s intention because, ultimately, we cannot know his intentions, we are potentially placing polygamous relationships on a par. Again, they are not entered into in Ireland because polygamy is illegal in Ireland but perhaps the ban on polygamy will be found to be repugnant to the Constitution in the light of this constitutional change in the future. The Minister himself mentioned throuples, I believe, in the Dáil. Are these to be on a par with other family forms? The Minister cannot tell us they will not be. Perhaps the words “among two persons” might have been added but the Minister has argued that a durable relationship is also the relationship of a single parent with his or her children. Fair enough but it was not beyond human ingenuity to find a way to ensure these strange, potential interpretations in the future cannot flow from this constitutional amendment if passed, as I hope it will not be.

Promoting marriage, by the way, is not the same as decrying or undermining the efforts of single parents, which are often heroic, as we all know, in the bringing up of children. That should go without saying. Single parents and, much more often than not, single mothers, have to do the work of two on their own. The research says what common sense tells us - two parents have a valuable advantage in that they have reason to help each other in performing tasks in the service of the family. All society benefits by having more married parents. The two married parents home has no competition when it comes to delivering the goods for families. There is a mysterious dearth of studies in this country but the Americans are not slow in evaluating what works. There is a 30 point happiness divide between married and unmarried Americans. Marriage has a causal impact on outcomes for adults and children with regard to completing college, earnings in life, social and emotional adjustment, employment prospects as well as future marriage and mental health prospects. That is from the Brookings Institution which refers to it as the marriage premium. It is not The Heritage Foundation or the MAGA Republicans; it is the bloody Brookings Institution.

This is where I see the denial and the disrespect coming from the Government. It wants to have it both ways. The Minister tells us that this will be inclusive but he is not able to give a single example of an injustice that it will remedy because there is none. As we saw with the children and family relationships legislation before a previous referendum and as we have seen with today’s O’Meara decision, it is always possible to legislate to deal with the particular situations of de facto families. This is about the Minister not wanting to give any particular respect to marriage. Although he says he is not taking away the State’s pledge to “guard with special care the institution of Marriage ... and protect it against attack” I would like to hear him try to tell us why marriage matters in his view. We already have a situation where, as I said, the State can do justice through its laws and its courts to children’s rights and to all the different de facto situations but what we had was the aspiration for marriage as a social ideal for all the reasons I have given because it actually works, on balance.That is now being taken away. The Minister is reassuring us by saying, "Don't worry. We still have this constitutional aspiration to protect marriage from attack", but how? This very proposal is the attack. Is he able to give us any reason he thinks marriage should be protected from attack? He said nothing in his opening contribution. He gave us nothing about why. He talked about the importance of marriage but that is lip service given so that the electorate does not take fright. In fact, however, he is not able to talk about why marriage has a value such that the State should continue to protect it against attack. I find that very strange.

It is the kind of stuff, and the old communist way of doing things, that has now been adapted by the progressive left, or far left if you like, which is to say that they are not changing things. However, they are changing the meaning of things to bring about the radical change they want. The Government will say the family is still based on marriage and that it has just extended the definition but, no, it has emptied the definition of any meaning. No longer can the traditional understanding of family linked to marriage, ideally, or marriage-like relationships, be given as an ideal or social proposal. The Government should be honest and state that it does not want marriage to enjoy any particular kind of respect. If it is being honest, therefore, why is it not proposing to take out the clause in the Constitution that states the State pledges to guard the institution of marriage and to prevent it from attack?

The Government is engaging in political manoeuvring and is not being upfront about what it is really about, which is that it has an itch about institutions such as marriage that it wants to scratch. It is not able to show that it is doing a single just thing to any person who is currently being deprived of his or her rights. All it is able to do is talk about a past that has long since passed. It should be trying to solve the problems of the country rather than engaging in this politics of gesture and politics of social change without being upfront about it at the same time.