Rónán Mullen (Independent)

We learned in recent days that the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, CEDAW, has recommended that we rerun the referendum on Article 41.2 of the Constitution that relates to women in the home. In our Constitution, the State recognises that woman, by her life within the home, gives the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved and the State pledges to endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be forced by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home. When the Irish people were asked remove that from the Constitution, they gave a resounding "No". They did not do so because they thought women should be chained the sink at home. They did so because they value the work done by mothers and fathers in the home. Indeed, our courts have held that the clause relates to fathers' duties in the home. What does it say about the arrogance and disconnection of self-appointed, or almost self-appointed, supposed human rights experts that their response to a decision by the Irish people about their Constitution is to say that they made the wrong decision and we should see how it could be run again? What would it say about our Government if it were to give any respect to that kind of proposal?

This is the kind of elitist arrogance that brings the UN into disrepute, quite frankly, and which advances the cause of populists. What our Government should be doing is seeking to interrogate what the Irish people meant when they rejected that change and voted to affirm the clause that recognises the special contribution of mothers in the home. What type of policies should we now advance to vindicate the rights of mothers and fathers in the home and help people who want to get off the treadmill of having to bring up kids at home and work outside the home? People are being seen as tools of the economy rather than the economy serving family life. Let us be done with the arrogance of that UN committee and let our Government focus on what the people decided last year and see what policies should be brought forward to respect that decision.