Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

It does tell them where their place is. I did not interrupt Senator McDowell's hour-long lecture. I felt like I was in a law lecture in UCD or something. However, Senator Keogan has twice intervened in my contribution. I ask her to show respect and not do so anymore.

The Constitution says that a woman's place is in the home because it seeks to protect it with full force, nearly because it provides that she will be supported to maintain her place within the home. Why does it not refer to a parent's place within a home? It is, therefore, telling the woman her place. If it was only protecting someone's ability to stay at home and care for their children, it would make the same reference to mother and father. It would say that we will protect the parents' right to stay in the home. However, it does not say that; it says woman. Therefore, it is making a differentiation. It is saying that, by the fact of being the mother, the woman's place is in the home.

As I said, there are only three references to woman or women and the one to come out is the one saying that her place is in the home and rightly so. If people want to strengthen the Constitution to protect women's rights, they have had a very long time in politics to do that. We could be doing that through lone parent legislation. We could be doing that through the widow's pension legislation. We could be doing that in every other aspect where women are treated as less equal, but we do not.

Within the child maintenance system, there is this idea that married people have to take on all these extra layers before they move on. I have seen many people just walk out of the home. They do not say they are going to stay and make sure they do it right by paying all the maintenance. I have watched people delay divorce proceedings on purpose for years and not pay maintenance to their children. For five years, I have been working on child maintenance stuff. Many of these married women receive absolutely nothing from their husbands in child maintenance. It is not true that there is some extra protection and that just because people have to go through the courts, they are biased by it. There are plenty of women who are worse off after their husbands have left the home. In some cases, it may be vice versaif the woman has left the home.

Even with child maintenance, people go to court and are told how much maintenance they have to pay. Nobody follows the person around to make sure they pay it. It is not deducted by Revenue or added as a tax credit. None of that is done. Plenty of people have gone through divorces and are not abiding by the court ruling. That needs to be fixed. When we are doing that, we need to ensure that protections available for married people are also available for cohabiting families so that they are also protected. Someone cannot just walk away if they have children in a house with somebody or both names are on a mortgage application or car loan. Surely the law already exists to protect people who share assets regardless. Siblings can take each other to court over assets. It is not something that is only carved out for married couples. That might happen through divorce proceedings.

People might have to take other types of actions. At the end of the day, we should be protecting the families of cohabiting couples in the same way that we protect the families of married couples. On top of that, we need to make sure we are recognising people and not standing over the idea that family is only going to be recognised by the Constitution for those who are married. The Constitution does not represent me or reflect my family. It does not reflect me when I was a child and now it does not reflect me as a mother, and I am one of many people.At the end of the day, why would we care about how anybody else lives or chooses to live? It actually benefits everyone. Equality and equity benefit the whole of society. If we can view everyone through the prism of being the same regardless of how they choose to live, then that benefits everyone. It does not take away anything from anyone, and we build in the legal structures to make sure that if there are any disagreements or separations that kids are always protected, their rights are protected and they are financially protected, and that any other legal issues can be done in legislation.

I will wrap up now but for me, it has been really confusing to watch the advocacy of some people against changing the definition of family. They will ground it in some red herrings, and also this idea that it is only about protection and people are still protected elsewhere. In advocating against changing how we view, recognise and value family systems and relationships, they are actually working to exclude many people in our society from being recognised in the same way as married couples. How people can make that make sense in their heads, and to try to sit it in a legal or political framework, is dishonest. It is deeper than that, and I think it is not about legal changes. It is that they actually believe marriage is protected above all else and other types of families do not matter in the same way that a married couple does. If they are going to say that is what family is and that is what they are going to fight for, then they are actually saying that. They can wrap it up in as many different campaign slogans or legal, political and social arguments as they want but when they get right down into the heart of it, what they are saying is, "We do not want our Constitution to recognise you and your family", and that is it. That has to change.