Sir, – The words “woman”, “women” and “mothers” appear a total of four times in the Constitution, compared to just two uses of the word “men” in reference to the male sex.
A few short years ago, if anyone had proposed the deletion of one of these references to women, they would undoubtedly have been accused of misogyny or worse. And yet in 2023, organisations which claim to represent women are at the vanguard of the campaign to delete one use of the word “woman”, and to eliminate “mothers” from the Constitution entirely. Do they see any irony in this?
Instead of deleting these references to women, why not just replace the offending wording in Article 42.1 with references to “men and women”, as already occurs twice in Article 45, and replace “mothers” with “fathers and mothers”? This could then be supplemented by the new wording on the duty of care within the family which is being proposed as a new Article 42B and which, as Conor O’Mahony points out, is being shoe-horned into a strange place in the text (“Referendum will just replace a sexist dead letter with a gender-neutral dead letter”, Opinion & Analysis, December 6th).
The reason this is not being proposed is, quite simply, that the binary distinction between two sexes, male and female, is now rejected outright by the left-wing NGOs who are driving these referendums and Government policy in this area.
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The last thing they want is another constitutional provision which cements this binary reality, and it is likely that they would delete the references from Article 45 if they could foist such a pointless idea on the Government.
There is also a question of what mandate the Government has to hold the second referendum on the definition of “family”. While the deletion of the infamous “women in the home” wording was promised in the programme for government, there was no commitment to change the definition of the family.
This second referendum is, however, in line with Fine Gael’s consistent policy of kicking every sleeping dog it can find between now and the next general election. – Yours, etc,
BARRY WALSH,
Clontarf,
Dublin 3.
Sir, – We are often told that a constitutional right to the environment would not be of any value. In researching this issue, we found an example of exactly how crucial an amendment to the Constitution (or lack of it) can be.
Ireland ratified the European Social Charter on November 4, 2000, but exercised the entitlement to non-acceptance of the right to housing contained in Article 31.
Article 31 has three commitments: 1) to promote access to housing of an adequate standard; 2) to prevent and reduce homelessness with a view to its gradual elimination; 3) to make the price of housing accessible to those without adequate resources.
The Fourth Report on the Non-Accepted Provisions of the Charter provided by Ireland in 2020 continued our refusal to accept Article 31, citing “existing provisions in the Irish Constitution”.
In fact, the subsequent assessment by the European Committee of Social Rights considered that there were “no major obstacles” to the acceptance by Ireland of Article 31. “Experience has shown”, they wrote, “that States tend to overlook that the selective acceptance of the provisions of the Charter should be only a temporary phenomenon and not a rule”.
Notwithstanding the fact that since 2000, the number of people experiencing homelessness in Ireland has increased by over 500 per cent, the Government’s position remains that “As existing provisions in the Irish Constitution have not changed since the ratification of the Charter it cannot be accepted by Ireland. The issue of accepting Article 31 will be re-examined if and when the constitutional position changes.”
Ireland’s stance on housing and the European Social Charter highlights the value of a constitutional right to housing – and for the environment. – Yours, etc,
TONY LOWES,
Friends of the Irish Environment,
Eyeries,
Co Cork.