Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

All laws, at the end of the day, are tested against constitutionality. In the beginning, when laws are drafted even regarding pensions, do you think when pensions such as the widow's pension were first considered that marriage was not put in as a criteria based on the fact that we place so much importance on marriage? We might look at it in less narrow terms now but it mattered then. When it came to my Mam and Dad, she looked after him to the day that he died. She was responsible for him, had to repay the mortgage which she continues to pay, was responsible for converting the room when his Parkinson's disease progressed, and was responsible for him in every other way that a married couple would be until the moment he died and then she was not entitled to a window's pension.She was not considered for that. However, while he was alive, they were considered as a partnership, taking care of children in every other way until that. Therefore, it does discriminate. Our policies have existed based on the ideals the country set out all those years ago, of how we want to live together, how we want to be together, what we value and what we do not value.

My concern here is that we are beginning to muddy the water. There are over 1 million one-parent households. It would be really sad to make those women think that their rights are being taken away by changing the Constitution. I have to tell all my friends and people who come to me who are not married that they are already not recognised in it. That is what people are failing to tell everybody. When they go out and campaign, they say "Oh, your rights as a woman in the Constitution are being taken away", without saying, "Oh, sorry, if you're actually a one-parent household, you didn't have them anyway." Nobody is giving the full context here.

Women are afraid they are actually losing something because of this amendment instead of gaining something from it in terms of recognition of who they are as a family and what they are to their children, their loved ones and the people they decide to spend the rest of their lives with. That is why it is important to really focus on durable relationships and what that means. Was that something I was enthused about? No, because it is a conversation we need to have as to what it means. I agree with Senator McDowell that we should not rely on the courts. I believe the Government should set out what a durable relationship is. Obviously, we do not want it to be too wide, but we do not want it to be too narrow either.

Not everybody can just access the courts. We do not want to make it a system based on people who have the ability, energy and perhaps the money to take a case. We do not want to create that situation. The Government needs to lay out what durable relationships are. That is why our amendments deal with durable relationships, not only in respect of people who cohabit but also the relationship between parents and child, which is very important.

We also need to consider kinship situations. I do not know if that has come up in the debates in the Dáil or in this Chamber yesterday. There are other situations that need to be determined as family. Some people have to raise younger siblings because a parent died. There may have been addiction or some other hardship within the family. Does a durable relationship take in that it will not necessarily be adult to adult or parent to child but also child to child, for example, sister to sister? If, God forbid, anything happened to me, would my girls be considered family within a durable relationship in the Constitution in terms of how they are supported and recognised? We need to figure out what durable relationships are.

Alongside the referendum, we also need to consider how we recognise one-parent households in general to make sure they have those protections in this. We should not be forcing women onto jobseeker's transitional payment when their kids are 14 because they should be protected under durable relationships in the same way that married people are. If they choose to stay at home or they choose to go out to work, they need to be supported in both scenarios. If they choose to stay at home, social welfare policy needs to be joined up with that to ensure that an unmarried woman who decides to stay at home is financially supported and not forced onto jobseeker's transitional payment when the child turns 14.

There are many policy intentions that can and should change along with this. However, this is not only about protection, although that is a huge part of it. It is also about recognising that Ireland has many different types of families and that marriage will not always be the choice of some people. Perhaps they do not believe in the institution of marriage or it just did not work out or perhaps they just did not get married but they have children - whatever the case may be. In each of our amendments relating to durable relationship, we need a caveat that recognises that durable relationship in those senses is recognised as parent to child - that my daughter and I are recognised as family.

I did a quick search of the Constitution to find how many times the words "woman" and "women" are used. There is a whole narrative out there that women's rights are being taken out of the Constitution. The word "women" is mentioned twice and the word "woman" is mentioned once. Where "woman" is mentioned, it is only in relation to her place within the home and that is the only reference that is being taken out. On the other two occasions where "women" are mentioned, they are mentioned in respect of their rights as equal to men. I think one is in the workplace and I would need to double-check where the other one is. Women and woman are only mentioned three times. It is an absolute lie to create this confusion or illusion to women that everything that they are protected from within the Constitution is all of a sudden being eroded away. It is an absolute lie because it is not in there. The only one being removed is the one that tells them where their place is.