Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
THERE’S A LOT going on in the two referendums Ireland will be voting on this Friday.
Speaking to people on the street, it’s clear there’s much confusion about what they’re both about.
So in an effort to change that, this is The Journal’s go at summarising the votes in 500 words or less.
The summary is not about the arguments on either side, of which there are many and available here, but rather it’s a quick guide to what the votes are about.
The referendums are separate but are connected because one is about how the Constitution defines the family and the other is about how it recognises care.
The Family Amendment
Essentially, this would mean that a family doesn’t have to involve a marriage.
As it stands, the Constitution explicitly links ‘the family’ solely with ‘marriage’ and voting Yes to this referendum extends the definition beyond marriage.
The meaning of marriage won’t change either way and the family is still considered ‘the fundamental unit group of Society’. Indeed, the Constitution says the State must ‘guard’ marriage ‘with special care’.
What the proposal does do is change the definition of the family, saying it would instead be ‘founded on marriage or on other durable relationships’.
The phrase ‘durable relationships’ is not defined as part of the referendum wording but the independent Electoral Commission says it means ”different types of committed and continuing relationships other than marriage”.
If this referendum is passed, families based on durable relationships would have the same constitutional rights as families based on marriage.
If a case comes before the Courts, a judge may have to decide if a relationship is ‘durable’ and in doing so they would take account of existing laws.
No new legislation has been proposed in tandem with this referendum.
In some previous referendums, such as the Eighth Amendment, proposed new laws were published in advance. In others, such as the Blasphemy referendum, they were not.
The Care Amendment
As it stands, the Constitution has a specific section dedicated to women and their ‘life within the home’.
The section is in two sentences and, though it does not specifically mention care, it says that this ‘life within the home’ is good for society because it assists ‘the common good’.
The Constitution adds that the State should try to make it so that women are not forced to do any work ‘to the neglect of their duties in the home’.
This current wording has little, if any, legal effect as women are not prevented from taking up work outside the home, nor are they supported to the extent that every woman who wishes to work only at home is able to do so.
If there is a No vote, the two sentences will remain in the Constitution. If it’s a Yes they will be removed and replaced with the following sentence:
The State recognises that the provision of care, by members of a family to one another by reason of the bonds that exist among them, gives to Society a support without which the common good cannot be achieved, and shall strive to support such provision.
So essentially,“care” is referenced for the first time in the Constitution. It says that care is provided by “members of a family to one another” and that where this is the case the State must “strive to support” this.
Again, the Courts may be asked at some point to decide if a government has sufficiently strived to support care in a particular case.
Electoral Commision chair Justice Marie Baker has said that there is no legal definition for ‘strive’ but that “obviously it means try or try very hard”.
“Courts would look at the general use in language, and it is a strong word,” she said.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
As much as I’m against the abolition of the Seanad, the senators themselves are making me doubt myself over the last while.
Me too, they come across as a crowd of amateurs.
either that or the media seems to be paying more attention to their cockups which wouldnt be entirely impossible
@Alan “cockups”, great pun
Spot on, I’d say. Cock-up a day in there, I reckon.
This is a genuine question, I’m not trying to troll: What is the advantage of having the Seanad in it’s current form? What powers does it have and how have they used them?
Looks like I’ll be voting on this in a couple of months and I dont know much about it!
Always look on the bright side…this proves at least that she can read…
I rest my case the senator is guilty as charged! Guilty of making headlines and using somebody elses comments! Absolute fool
An independent thinker? Methinks not!
I bet you plagiarised that ;)
Jeez some parents really p1ss me off.
Don’t buy your child a smartphone or tablet and leave them to view what ever they want .
.
Plus porn is the least of their worries when there are sites like ‘bestgore’ etc available .
And Facebook for all sorts to groom your kids .
Wake up and police your own kids.
whats this bestgore website you speak of ?
I’m gonna go out on a limb and assume its along the lines of rotten.com
Exactly
Quite a bit of uncensored Middle-Eastern head-chopping sort of stuff
NOT FOR THE FEINT-HEARTED OR THE PC BRIGADE !!
Remember that time enda robbed Obamas speech right in from him in dublin
Was it plagiarism, though? I mean, most took it as a respectful homage, since even Obama smiled when he got to the part that quoted Obama.
This was more like a person spoofing, since the columnist was not there to acknowledge her work, or defend the parts that were quoted.
Still, I wonder if she will be branded the new ‘spoofer’ or maybe ‘spooferess’? There was a TD from a while back who stole an entire speech that a colleague of his made a few years ago.
Yes Obama was laughing at him not with him
There is proof, if proof was needed that senators, or at least this one don’t even bother to do there own background work.
Abolish them I say.
Bit harsh. Abolish The seanad maybe.
WONT SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN….
Yeah.
Be a parent!
Why should we be surprised by plagiarism? Surely it is the least of their faults?
No this is getting completely blown out of proportion, if this was to come into force it would give the government more leeway to start thinking of monitoring us full time on our activities on the internet! if parents are worried about children coming across porn on the internet do what i did and block these websites from the family computer! there going to come across it in magazines and newspapers anyway but blocking out the porn websites at home is at least a start !! anyway why anytime england enforces a law, ireland hop up and think they have to follow suit Jeez talk about mother republic
Simple solution, set up Net Nanny or similar software on your PC, and block all the offending websites.
Installing something that monitors our web usage is far too similar to Prism, and that is causing the US way too much hassle right now.
Simpler still. Buy a netgenie router and block dodgy sites at the point if entry to the household. Any and all devices coming in with you or your children’s friends are then blocked at source…… simples! Netnanny and other parental control softwares need to be policed on individual devices. Not so with a net genie.
An unheard of senator plagiarising from a journalist as a contribution to the senate. Meanwhile being paid whopping salaries and expenses by the state. Anyone who will miss this ladies contribution when the senate goes (hopefully) need only buy the Sunday times each week.
* lady’s
A senator who commented that fluoride causes downs syndrome should not be known for her ability to think critically on her own…its a damning disgrace that we have such people in positions of power, the Seanad is broke I’ll be glad to see it gone, though really it should be an elected position, staffed with minds not loose tongues in need of a licking ground.
‘ “It was my intention to attribute her work during my contribution something which I sadly failed to do,” O’Brien, the co-founder of the Jack and Jill Foundation and Lily O’Brien’s Chocolates, admitted in a statement to TheJournal.ie today.’
Well, we all know which road is paved with good intentions.
This sums up how much thought and research so many people in power put into their proposals in this country.
“Oh, I read a an article once. It convinced me. I won’t do any further research because I’m uncomfortable with having my opinions challenged. Let me read it to you.”
This proposed filtering system is dangerous. It’s difficult to argue against it because it’s being cleverly worded to suggest that it will make child porn and videos of rape illegal when, obviously, they are already illegal. It’s far too easy to descend into a swarm of jokey innuendo and ignore the crux of this.
This will have no impact on stopping paedophiles discovering or producing child porn. These people do not operate on pornhub. They operate beyond the reach of search engines, on the deep web or otherwise.
As for children, it is staggeringly easy to set up effective filters on your computer if you feel your child may stumble upon questionable content. This proposed system would give parents a false sense of complacency about internet security and they may become even more hands off if this were to come into effect.
Im actually surprised FG dont just tax it. Sure why not? They’ve taxed everything else.
Is that not what they’re doing with the new broadcasting charge?
Hope she’ll be prosecuted under “No Sh*t Sherlock’s” new copyright law.
Of course, I’m assuming that what’s sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose too.
Wow that is pathetic. Was she paid by FG to do this in order to help their populist anti senate campaign?
Sure she copied the chocolate too. That is what she does. Getting paid for her ego boosting is immoral.
More talking through one’s F it would appear
People should start parenting their children properly and leave the fupping Internet alone!
If they blocked porn and torrents all that would be left is one website called bringbackthepornandtorrents.com
They abdicate responsibility. Putting tech in kiddies hands is like asking them to go play in traffic.
The Net is a grown-up, real world place. Who would want their child to read TheJournal.ie?
… and yes I said yes I will Yes. Oh that’s Joyce. No, no, never, oh, that’s Paisley. There’s nothing worse than people copying you, than people not copying you, oh that’s Wilde……….. I give up.
Sure its normal ,Enda robbed his policies from The “Dummies guide to Economics”
Wow…. Another genius kissing her own arsehole…. Try using your own brain for a change…
It was the fluoride in the water that gave her memory loss: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amx5gcbRCLk
Shameful plagiarism. I actually watched her give that speech on dail tv. Cringe.
I’m guessing she’ll get quite the shock if she ever gets around to comparing Playboy with Hustler. The whole porn debate is similarly being skewed from child porn to now all erotic imagery of any kind. Daft. And of course there are already filters in google, browsers and parenting software that can be bought.
And who is to say what is erotic, and what is art? And sometimes there can be a mere line delineating between the two.
Going back in time not forward typical of this government
What worries me about the possibility of blocking porn sites is another situation where the government are wading in with censorship. I personally believe we as adults can view what we want and choose and that it be up to the adults to police there own pc rather than the government policing our Internet. Next thing we’ll know is tv3 will be block coz of controversial program’s. I can see Ireland turning into a nanny state where everything is monitored and restricted we’ll all be programmed robots shuffling around
Is this the women who set up the Jack and Jill foundation??
If so then she has done good work, she’s not a stupid women.
Add to that, she was appointed to the Seanad by Enda, seems to me Enda’s cronies may be doing this type of thing on purpose to prime the public before the referendum.
What a feckin egiot!! She didn’t have time to write her own speech because Home and Away was on!
In the other hand is a risk for the freedom of expression…some web pages are blocked in ireland like thepiratebay.com and in other countries some others…
I bet Enda kennys cronies will cost a lot more than the Seanad
Let’s take another example of a fire-bucket as a reason to burn the building.
Never mind if other told it before…well told
Intended as repositors of the wisdom of the more experienced members of society ; self-serving and dishonest senators of average intellect and dubious honesty will ensure that there will be no counterbalance to the populist idiots of Dail Eireann.
have your say