Shock upset in Ireland over family issues vote
Varadkar admits being given a ‘walloping’ by voters after resounding defeat in referendum
LEO VARADKAR admitted Irish voters had given his government “two wallops” yesterday, after a shock upset led to a resounding defeat of his double referendum on changing the constitution’s language on family issues.
Sixty-seven per cent of people voted against the family referendum and turnout for the votes was 44.36 per cent, a significant drop from the abortion referendum in 2018 which had a turnout of 64 per cent.
The highest “no” votes in the family referendum came in Laois-Offaly with 75.7 per cent, Mayo at 75.5 per cent and Longford-Westmeath with 74.6 per cent.
The Irish prime minister had pushed for proposals to modernise constitutional references to marriage being the foundation of the family and a “mother’s duties in the home”.
Mr Varadkar had pitched the referendum vote, held on Friday to coincide with International Women’s Day, as a chance to delete some “very old-fashioned, very sexist language about women”.
His government had urged the Irish public to not take a “step backwards” by voting No and polls suggested it would easily pass.
But even before the final results had been published, Mr Varadkar was forced to admit that the amendments were “defeated comprehensively on a respectable turnout”.
He said voters had delivered “two wallops” to the government.
“Clearly, we got it wrong,” he added. “While the old adage is that success has many fathers and failure is an orphan, I think when you lose by this kind of margin, there are a lot of people who got this wrong and I am certainly one of them.
“It was our responsibility to convince the majority of people to vote ‘yes’ and we clearly failed to do so.”
The referenda were the latest attempt to reflect the changing face of Ireland from a conservative, Roman Catholic country to an increasingly diverse and socially liberal society. The two proposals – called the family amendment and the care amendment – aimed to change the text of Article 41 in the Irish constitution, written in 1937.
The first asked citizens to expand the definition of family from those founded on marriage to also include “durable relationships” such as cohabiting couples and their children.
The second proposed replacing old-fashioned language around a mother’s “duties in the home” with a clause recognising care provided by family members to one another.
Carol Nolan, an Independent TD for Laois-Offaly, described the result as a “political earthquake” which showed “how far the Irish government is out of touch with ordinary people”.
Ms Nolan said the referenda were championed by a number of “unelected NGOs”, including the National Women’s Council of Ireland, and were as much about the “dominance that NGOs have in our current political system as about anything else”.
The constitution, the core legal text of the nation, can only be modified through a national referendum.
Opinion polls had suggested support for the “yes” side on both votes, but many voters remained undecided as Friday’s polling neared and some said they found the issue too confusing or too hurried to change the constitution.
All the major political parties had supported a “Yes-Yes” vote and, until recently, polls predicted a smooth passage for both proposals.
But No campaigners argued the concept of “durable relationship” was undefined and that women and mothers were being “cancelled”.
Campaigners also said the changes could constitutionally protect polygamous relationships and increase immigration via migrant family reunions – claims all denied by the government.
Mary Lou McDonald, the Sinn Fein leader, told reporters the government had failed to convince voters to vote “yes” by not consulting with the opposition “or with other stakeholders”.
Senator Michael McDowell, the former attorney general who campaigned for the No side, said: “It appears that the government misjudged the mood of the electorate and put before them proposals which they didn’t explain and which could have serious consequences.”