Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will be voting a very strong "Yes" to this amendment to the Constitution and will do so with a very glad heart. I believe that the description of women as set out is dated and is not reflective of an inclusive modern Ireland and of how care and duties in families are reflected in a modern Ireland.

Let us look at what a "No" vote would do. A "No" vote would leave it in there - a piece of the Constitution that has no material effect on people's lives.We will have a redundant article in the Constitution that is not fit for purpose. I have read constitutions from different countries to adjudicate how their supreme courts and governments administer them. We can contrast between countries. A person looking in on Ireland would think that for all its pronouncements, it is not a particularly modern state in that it believes that women have duties that are particular and need to be preserved and red circled for being in the home, and that women will not fulfil those duties were they, God forbid, actually to come out and work for a living or contribute other than in the home.

The second issue is that care as a concept will not go into the Constitution. It will be left out of it. A "No" vote does not do anything for the delivery of services for disabilities. It does nothing to enhance anything that is espoused by the opposition to this Bill. It will not advance a single thing. A "No" vote therefore is merely a protest; it is opposition politics for it's own sake. It does not constructively add to this in any way. The problem is that the chances of it coming round to another referendum are fairly slim as we move on. All of the work of the citizens' assembly, the gender equality committee will be for nothing. It is not an option to have a "No" vote. We need a "Yes" vote. We need to figure out what that "Yes" vote actually means.

The Constitution is not the place for particularising what exactly that should look at. The Constitution is the place for concepts and aspirations that we subscribe to as a people from which rights can be promoted, drawn and naturally flow. The proposed wording is that the State recognises the provision of care. Care is an action word. Care is an interaction that happens. We are saying that this happens as a provision. We have a comma there deliberately. Commas are there to separate different distinguished groups within a sentence. They are there for that purpose, so it is the provision of care. I have listened to the concerns of disability representatives and advocates, as I know the Minister has. Yesterday, on Second Stage, I addressed, in particular, groups such as the Independent Living Movement who say that people with disabilities are not merely passive recipients of care. I did it wholeheartedly. Then the Minister spoke and I went home and absorbed and processed all of Second Stage and thought, "Hold on a minute, what we are talking about here is not merely care for people with disabilities." If we confine it to such, we are reducing what this provision in our Constitution is actually all about. I stand by the view that people with disabilities are not mere passive recipients of care; they are people who also give care. This morning I think of Selina Bonnie to whom I paid tribute on the Order of Business for her extraordinary work and I outlined my regret at her passing. She was a giver of care. She was a standard setter and a changemaker. She was all of those things and she was a disabled person. She was not a passive recipient of anything. In fact, she was a person who put it up to everybody else to make changes. One of the biggest tributes I will give to her is, in the passage of the assisted human reproduction, AHR, legislation, that she made sure that people with disabilities had a right and access to fertility treatment in this country. I will insist on that in her name as we clarify that Bill coming through the House. People who have disabilities also care and love. They also can be parents and people who give care. Let us not be reductivist in our assumptions in this debate.

We qualify the aspiration within the Constitution by saying a family to one another and there is a mutuality of care within that concept. Within the wording that we put here it is a mutuality, a giving of care as equals to one another. I have a eight-year-old child. She can be sassy. I like to think she takes after me. She gives care and love. Every day I am challenged by her unfiltered comments on things and the fact that I have to be so filtered about my life. Even in parent-to-child relationships there is the mutual respect and care of each other. Yes I do things, I obviously am providing and doing a whole heap of things with regard to her, as my husband does also. That said, there is a mutual exchange. The recognition of that care and love from a toddler of two, if I climbed up on a stool to get something she would say, "Be careful". It is all of those things. Care is an instinct and we are recognising that mutuality in the wording of this. We are saying that "without which the common good cannot be achieved". That is very powerful statement. We cannot achieve what we need in our State without the provision of care to each other, particularly within the family, and that we will strive to support such a position. "Strive" is an important word there because we are saying there is no limit to the aspiration of what the State envisages but there may be a limit to what we can actually finance. We will strive to support it. It may be that we support it in mechanisms other than direct funding. It may be in ensuring hearings in courts or child maintenance. It may be in a number of different ways that are not necessarily on the purse of the State. The fact is this is such a strong statement for our people. We need to have "strive" there as a little qualifier to say we will strive but some of the aspirations that will flow from this may be too big for us. We will try, we will wrestle with it and we will actively engage with what we can do to make sure that we are respecting care.

Senator Mullen referred to the duties of care and caring and said that we are reducing what caring is. I remind him that Article 42 begins: "The State acknowledges that the primary and natural educator of the child is the Family and guarantees to respect the inalienable right and duty of parents to provide, according to their means, for the religious and moral, intellectual, physical and social education of their children." I wonder what duties actually stands for in the previous article because that is a really comprehensive provision. The description of the relationship is found within the new article and that provision in Article 42. It is important to remember that. We are not being reductive in any way.

While I disagree with the interpretation, with due respect to Senator Clonan, and how far he is taking it but I completely agree with the plight of parents and family carers. I was on Newstalk's "Lunchtime Live With Andrea Gilligan". She has been very good in highlighting, promoting and campaigning for family carers. I listened to the story today of Gayle and her son Luca and the fact that she is a prisoner in her own home. She has no respite and none of the things she should have. The family changed its CHO area last year by moving house and his care package did not transfer across, despite the HSE being advocated to repeatedly. Until Andrea Gilligan sent it an email today, the HSE failed to engage. It said that after today it would. There is a truth that there is an appalling failing in the culture of the HSE with regard to the manner and approach to families who have members with disabilities.That it had the gall to go into court and defend that child spending 60 days off an emergency department room and say it did not cause her any harm is shocking. Whoever gave that instruction should be sacked. It is a shocking position for the HSE to take.

However, voting "No" will not advance that situation. Reviewing the disability Act to make sure it includes access to services and not merely assess to assessment will. Presumably, the Minister is the one who had to go in and do the arm-wrestling with the Minister for Finance to allow the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, to deliver €15 million for respite care and her three-pronged plan, which will also change that situation. It requires political pressure. The aspiration in the Constitution will not change that. The steps the Government is taking will and are already bringing about change and doing what needs to be done. Concerning the stories like those of Gail, Luca and others, unfortunately, it is the way of things that we must share some of our most difficult moments to stimulate change. Those situations are the ones for which we need campaigns and to keep pressure going. The change in the Constitution, the recognition of care and the State striving to support such provision is what we need to support and drive home. Voting "No" is not an option. It does not get us any further and does nothing productive. It sets us back and sets back the work of NGOs in advocating and sets back women's rights over the past number of years. It is a slap in the face to the women of Ireland who have said we do not want this in our Constitution and we do not want to be defined. The Constitution is not a place to label individuals, it is about setting out a provision for all our people equally.

I support this. A lot has been said. I am just checking my notes to make sure I covered everything I wanted to. It is a good provision. Some are being disingenuous. Some of the debate has been to approach it in a mean-spirited way rather than seeing the provision as opening up a vista of care, putting it on a standing in the Constitution, ensuring it has that place and is at the centre of the Constitution. It is part of the rights between Articles 1 and 44. We are putting it at the heart of that. We recognise the fundamental position of care, not in a reductive way but in a way that aspires to much more than we can imagine. The wording of this provision does that. It even provides for concepts we have not even thought about yet and may arise. I congratulate the Minister. A lot of hard work went into this. I say, "Well done". I urge people to vote "Yes". We need this. We need to get rid of the old wording.