Constitution and ‘durable relationships’

Sir, – In his two recent letters (January 31st and February 2nd), Dr Tom Hickey insists that the fact that the contentious phrase “durable relationships” appears shortly after “marriage” in the referendum text makes it likely that the former will be interpreted in line with the latter, and that only relationships involving two people will be sufficient basis for a family.

Dr Hickey fails to consider the full phrase used in the proposed text, which is “other durable relationships”.

The adjective “other” has two potential meanings: it can mean further or additional, or it can mean something which is different or distinct from that which has already been mentioned.

The Irish text of the amendment uses the word “eile” which strictly translated means “another”, an adjective which shares these two possible meanings. None of this lends much weight to Dr Hickey’s theory, since the text can clearly be interpreted in a way which would define “durable relationships” as being something quite different to marriage.

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An obvious solution, which would give the text the meaning ascribed to it by Dr Hickey, would have been to explicitly link the two phrases by including the word “such” in the text, by saying that a family is founded on “... marriage or other such durable relationships” (“... ar an bpósadh nó ar chóngais bhuanfasacha den sórt sin”).

This formula (“such other”/“den sórt sin”) is used 20 times in the Constitution as it stands, and in each case the context clearly shows that it is intended to draw an explicit link with the text which has directly preceded it, since “den sórt sin” means “of that type”.

So why was it not used to eliminate this glaring ambiguity?

The failure to do so is either the product of sloppy drafting, or a calculated omission by a political establishment which wants the judiciary to make a thorny policy decision for them by having the final word on what exactly a “durable relationship” might be.

Either way, the amendment should be rejected. – Yours, etc,

BARRY WALSH,

Clontarf,

Dublin 3.