Referendum in Ireland on the family | Irish people reject proposals for gender equality

(Dublin) Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar admitted defeat on Saturday, when two proposed constitutional amendments that he supported were rejected by referendum.

Amendments that would have broadened the definition of family and removed references to the role of the housewife were rejected in the first vote counts.

Mr Varadkar, who pushed the vote to enshrine gender equality in the constitution by removing “very old-fashioned language” and trying to recognize the realities of modern family life, admitted the amendments had been “broadly rejected with a respectable participation rate.

Opponents argued that the wording of the changes was poorly thought out — an argument that appears to have gained traction in the final days of the campaign. Some voters admitted they were confused by the questions and others feared the changes would lead to unintended consequences.

Some considered that Ireland, a conservative, predominantly Catholic country where it was forbidden to have an abortion or divorce, was moving towards an increasingly diverse and socially liberal society thanks to the holding of this referendum.

The proportion of Catholic residents has fallen from 94.9% in 1961 to 69% in 2022, according to the Central Statistics Office.

This social transformation is reflected in a series of changes to the Irish Constitution, dating from 1937 and written before the country was officially known as the Republic of Ireland in 1949.

Irish voters legalized divorce in a 1995 referendum, supported same-sex marriage in a 2015 vote and repealed the abortion ban in 2018.

The first question concerned a part of the constitution which commits to protecting the family as the principal unit of society. Voters were asked to remove the reference to marriage as the basis “on which the family is founded” and replace it with a clause stating that families can be founded “on marriage or other types of enduring relationships.” If it had been adopted, it would have been the 39^e amendment of the Constitution.

A 40^e proposed amendment would have removed a reference that a housewife’s place provided a common good that could not be provided by the state as well as a statement that mothers should not be forced to work out of economic necessity if this neglected their duties at home. He would have added a clause stating that the state will endeavor to support “the provision of care by members of a family to one another.”

The debate was less charged than the debates over abortion and same-sex marriage. Ireland’s main political parties have all backed the changes, including centrist government coalition partners Fianna Fail and Fine Gael and the largest opposition party, Sinn Fein.