Erin McGreehan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This is an exhausting debate, and it is frustrating in many ways. If we go back to what we want to achieve in this referendum, it is quite simple. It is quite clear. It is whether this country and its people want our Constitution - all our Constitution - to catch up with the society that we live in. Those who advocate for a "No" vote have to ask themselves whether they are happy that the Constitution leaves out so many homes. I say "homes" because under the Constitution, they are not families; they are homes. Many homes are left outside and not acknowledged in the Constitution. I and, I think, this referendum want to say is that those homes that are made up of durable relationships, of people who are not married, lone parents or a grandmother to her grandson or granddaughter are a family. It is really simple.

Even before this Constitution and all through the years, there have been different sorts of families. We always have had complicated families. It is not new that we have had complicated families. If one looks back to the census of 1911 and those years, you see complicated families. I might have asked my grandmother who was that person who was living with such a person, to be told that he was whoever's son and he lived with us because his parents had died or were living abroad working or whatever. They lived with us but that little part, that unit, was not recognised as a family.

Change can be difficult. There is a fear of change. Sometimes modernity is fearful. The change and that fear is striking in the debate here. I hear talk about how the past should not be talked about. I am sorry but the past shapes our present. It shapes what we do next. It is not a misunderstanding of or not understanding the small context of how the past was experienced by you or by someone else. It is about the misunderstanding or non-acceptance of what the past has done unto people other than you and an acceptance of what the past has done to people.

We talk about intergenerational harm. We talk about the intergenerational legacy in many other ways but there is an effect of what the past has done unto the present. The past is highly relevant in this discussion because what we are trying to do is to bring our Constitution forward. Our legislation has brought us forward but our Constitution has stayed steady.

I got a phone call last night on my way home from Dublin. It was from a lady who is in her 70s. She reminded me of when she was younger and there were great discussions about the lone-parent payment. The talk about town was that they all would be going out and getting pregnant to get the few pounds and they would all want it. Where was that discussion coming from? It was coming from people thinking that it would be just to get the few pounds. That was the argument against that measure, because all young ones would be going out to get themselves pregnant. We have come a long way from that, thank goodness.

Now we have to move a little bit further to say families are different. I was entertained by Senator McDowell's contribution and that this referendum is not a push for an acceptance of promiscuity and that you cannot just jump into one cohabiting relationship or one durable relationship and jump out. We are not in Lanigan's Ball here. Just because we pass this referendum does not mean you can run out and leave responsibilities behind. We should have more faith in people. People should have had more faith in young women in the 1970s when they were saying that payments should not be given to single mothers because other ones will just follow suit and get the payment, whatever measly payment it was back then.

There is talk about deconstructing marriage and a demoting of marriage. It is quite the opposite in this referendum because marriage clearly is still there. A valid argument on deconstruction of marriage would be if marriage was taken out of the Constitution. That would validate Senator Mullen's argument.

It does not affect the institution of marriage. Marriage is sacred. It is lovely. It is an acknowledgement, a signed contract. I would say that Senator McDowell, as a senior counsel, loves a good contract. That is what marriage is. Acknowledging a family and its difference in no way downgrades a civil contract, a contract of marriage, and for our Constitution to acknowledge the diversity of people and the diversity of family does not either.

On denying that opportunity, I was struck by Senator Higgins's comment that we will not be able to blame de Valera and Archbishop McQuaid if this referendum is not passed. We will only be able to blame modern Ireland. We will only be able to blame the naysayers. That would be a sad indictment of this country, when it has come so far in the past few decades.

To accept change, you can be fearful of change but should not persecute and downgrade people and their family in their choice of how they run their lives. You can still have your ideal of the family unit under marriage. You can still have that and can still live by that; the constitutional amendment will not affect that.

As a modern and changing country, we should trust people, couples and families and should modernise our Constitution to accept that the ideal never really existed and that the Constitution should reflect our State and reflect that families are made up of difference.