The motion regarding the statement for the information of voters in relation to the Fortieth Amendment of the Constitution (Care) Bill 2023 will be debated in conjunction with Second Stage of the Bill, but will not be moved until Fifth Stage is concluded.
Fortieth Amendment of the Constitution (Care) Bill 2023: Second Stage
Tairgeadh an cheist: “Go léifear an Bille don Dara hUair anois.”
Question proposed: “That the Bill be now read a Second Time.”
I am pleased to present the Fortieth Amendment of the Constitution (Care) Bill 2023 to the House this evening. I thank those who will participate in today’s debate for their continued interest in this significant proposition, which will give the Irish people the opportunity to vote at last on removing the outdated language related to the woman’s role in the home from our Constitution. In its place, the Government proposes recognising the care provided by families to one another, thereby expressly enshrining care as a value within our Constitution. In this regard, the Government amendment comprises three main elements: it will remove the archaic reference to a woman’s life and a mother's duties within the home; it will recognise the immense value of the care and support which family members give to one another, which is a foundation for solidarity and cohesion within our society; and it will create an obligation – an onus - on the State to support those care relationships.
Much has been made in recent weeks of what this new clause in our Constitution will do. I have heard it described as “cosmetic”, “wishy-washy” and “merely symbolic”. Senators should please make no mistake. Every amendment to our Constitution is meaningful, in particular one which places an obligation on the State. This will have a very real meaning. Words matter, but symbols matter also. When Mary Robinson, a former Member of this House, was elected to the State’s highest office in 1990, she spoke about how symbols give us identity, helping us to explain ourselves to ourselves and to others. However, they do more than that. She said: “Symbols in turn determine the kinds of stories we tell and the stories we tell determine the kind of history we make and remake.” If passed, the proposed amendment will stand as a statement of our values in terms of equality and recognition of the valuable role that both women and men play in all spheres of public and private life.
The amendment proposed is not just symbolic. It will have real legal significance. It will be significant for people like Tracy Carroll, who I met last week when launching the Family Carers Ireland campaign for a “Yes” vote. Tracy said:
Caring for both my children is a labour of love, but it's also incredibly demanding. This referendum is a chance for Ireland to stand by families like mine, to ensure we are not left to struggle alone. A “Yes-Yes” vote is a vote for compassion and understanding of the realities we face every day. It will give us hope for a future where family carers are not just acknowledged but actively supported.
Significantly, this amendment will place an onus on the State, this Government and all future Governments for a progressive realisation of support for care within families, building out on existing supports where necessary.
I will turn to the specific wording and how this will be achieved. The proposed amendment would delete Article 41.2 in its entirety and insert a new Article 42B into the Constitution. The new Article 42B, if passed, will read:
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.
The intention is to recognise unpaid care provided by immediate and extended family. In contrast to Article 41.2, the proposed new article involves recognition of a much broader form of care beyond the care of mothers for their children in the home. The proposed article also places an onus on the State to strive to support family care. Again, the language we are using is important, for example, “shall strive”, which puts a mandatory obligation on the State.
If the Government had not wanted to create an obligation on the State to support such care, there were other avenues available to it. The Government could have just brought forward a proposal to delete Article 41.2 in its entirety and not replace it with anything, and I know a similar proposal was brought forward a number of years ago. The Government is not proposing that. The new article recognising care could have been placed in Article 45, on the directive principles and social policy, which are non-justiciable. The Government is not proposing that avenue. The State could merely have recognised care within a revision of Article 41.2 without placing an obligation, but the State did not decide to go that route. Instead, amending the Constitution as proposed, the Government is clearly placing an onus on the State, this Government and future Governments for a progressive realisation of support for care within a family, again, building out on existing supports where necessary. The Government's intention is that the wording of the proposed article reflects a requirement for the State to make serious and sustained efforts to support family care.
It must be noted that the proposed amendment does not create an express constitutional entitlement to specific measures of support, such as grants or allowances. The Government and the Oireachtas retain the power to define both the types and levels of supports, and the criteria in respect of eligibility for those supports. This is deeply important in the context of the separation of powers, which is fundamental to the functioning of the State. It is the people who elect us to the Oireachtas and, in doing that, they choose where State resources should go.
The wording of the amendment has been developed carefully, with the assistance of the Attorney General, to ensure it supports that balance while also meeting the overall aim of the proposal to recognise the role played by the family in terms of the mutual support and care which is provided on an unpaid and voluntary basis, and that the State shall "strive to support” it. The word "strive" is relatively novel in the Constitution but it was also chosen carefully to reflect the intention of the Government in this proposed constitutional amendment.
In recent weeks, there has been some discussion on the scope and breadth of the new Article 42B and why care in the family is being recognised and not care in the wider community, as was proposed by the citizens' assembly. As we know, the family is the cornerstone of society because of the mutual care, strength and support that family members give to one another, care and support which is unconditional, often constant and often intensive. That care is fundamental in our society. It is the Government's position that it is right to recognise it as a public good and that we commit to the State supporting it. This is the care that families give to one another. It is unique. It is foundational. It is the essence of our humanity. It is core to nurturing our children and allowing each one of us to reach our full potential.
The work of people who provide care in the wider community is also hugely important to Irish society. Paid care workers and public and private care enterprises all provide important supports to unpaid carers. We believe it would represent an anomaly to identify and enshrine the rights of one cohort of workers and, potentially, their private sector employers and private commercial enterprises in the Constitution. That said, while paid workers do not fall directly within the scope of the amendment, support for family care currently often includes paid services, for example, personal assistance hours. This amendment expresses a strong commitment by the State to support a robust care infrastructure through supporting family care, wherever that care takes place. Through the express obligation on the State to support family care, there is a recognition of the importance of investing in that professional care system which wraps around and supports families.
This change has been spoken about for decades. I know that in our discussions, when we have discussed the issues of gender equality, many Senators have gone through the various domestic and international calls to make changes to Article 41.2 so it reflects the realities of today. Now we have the opportunity. Now we have the chance to change the language of Article 41.2, remove the outdated vision of the position of women within Irish society and clearly enshrine a value of care in our Constitution, a value that recognises that care is the job of men and women, mams and dads, sons and daughters. Importantly, it seeks to place a clear onus on the State that that care must be supported, an onus that will exist for this Government and for Governments going forward. I commend the Bill to the House.
To facilitate the rotation of the Chair, I call Senator McGreehan.
The Minister is welcome to the House to discuss this Bill. I very much welcome it. It is important that we modernise our Constitution. The proposed new article is a continuation of the previous article and proposes to extend what the family means, lay down the importance of the family unit and acknowledge the differences in our new modern families. We will extend what care means and what activities are going on in homes and families around the country. It acknowledges ungendered care and what care by everybody in the family unit involves.
There is some commentary on the remarks from one judge that the article never hindered her. Thankfully, I have been able to achieve what I wanted to achieve in life. I have not been prevented from fulfilling my ambitions. However, we have to consider what the article means. I looked up what former Chief Justice Susan Denham said. Of course she is absolutely right; the article never stopped anybody from going out to work and a woman from achieving her goals. However, she had privilege and was able to get her education and become a judge. Her family was able to encourage her.
In my family, there were no opportunities for education. Women were told there was no point in finishing school. They were told they should get married, have their children and stay at home, and fulfil our Constitution which refers to life within the home. Women were told to stay there and not to neglect those duties within the home. Any mothers here for this debate are neglecting our duties in the home. I am not at home making the tea for my boys because I am here. Obviously, I am not prevented from being here by the Constitution but the article is about what it says about this country. It states that a woman's life is within the home. The article does not give us anything. We have court cases to prove that the woman's life within the home provision did not provide any constitutional protection when a woman was denied any rights to her family home by the Supreme Court.
I find it difficult to take comments from mainly men who have said women were not affected by this article. I do not buy that. People are affected by the article. I have been affected by it. It is wrong. I think of my mother, granny and aunts who were prevented from having opportunities like I did. Think of what the State would have been if a woman's life was not consigned to her life within the home. In our Constitution, the woman's life is within the home. The article does not state that her place is in the home. Rather, it states that her life is within the home and that she should not neglect her duties. I am paraphrasing, but that is in the psyche of our nation.
On Twitter, I asked for a "Yes" vote. It is amazing how threatened some men are by the fact that a woman's life will not be shackled to a life within the home. I received gendered abuse, insults and private messages just because I called for a "Yes" vote and do not believe that a woman's place should be shackled or outlined by the Constitution as being in the home.
There are men up and down the country who provide care within the home. That valuable work should be acknowledged in the Constitution. Their work, love and attention should be acknowledged in the Constitution. We should embrace the fact that the State has moved on. Men are embracing their roles as fathers, carers and minders in their homes. They pick up the kids with their scrapes, do the school runs and all of these things. When I was growing up that never happened. There were never any men at the school gates. Our world is changing. I hear a tut from over in the corner, but this is my reality. The truth is not a lie.
If you were a woman who was not from a privileged background and did not have an opportunity to have an education or were not able to pay for education you did not achieve anything. I do not buy the suggestion that the article did not affect women and the policies and laws of the State over the past 100 or so years. This change is a proper move forward and catches up with our society and country.
In his closing remarks I would love if the Minister talked about care outside the home, in particular people who are striving for independent living. . A lot of DPOs are supportive of this amendment but they want to hear from the Minister. He is very aware of this. They have spoken to me about the Minister's forward thinking on this. He did not have an opportunity to speak on the floor of the Dáil about how support for people with disabilities fits into the Constitution, how their lives will be improved and how we will acknowledge the care the State should be giving to them in order to provide them with independent living in their own homes. How do we reconcile that with Article 19 of the UNCRPD? The Minister's Department is the lead Department for the UNCRPD. I would love to hear from him and his Department how this referendum, coupled with the work he is doing and which we are constantly pushing the Department to do, interacts and will progress the rights of people with disabilities.
Senator McGreehan will take the Chair. The running order will be Senator McDowell, followed by Senators Garvey, Seery Kearney, Hoey, Higgins and Boylan.
You mentioned everybody. You did not mention me or-----
I was referring to the lead spokespeople for each group and then you can be brought in if you are not sharing time.
That is fine.
I want to say a couple of words about the debate which has just passed because the Minister took it upon himself to look for a "Yes, Yes" vote. He is clearly twinning these two proposals. He is entitled to do so; I do not object to that.
However, I want to say one thing. Reflecting on what was said in the House in the past hour, I do not understand that the State puts any particular extra value on marriage any more. I do not believe that we are not in the process of making so-called durable relations - whatever they may turn out to be - any way different from marriage in their legal effect or constitutional status. The more I thought about what the Minister had to say, the more convinced I became that he has, as Senator Mullins has said, hollowed out the special position of marriage because nobody can now say with any certainty that there is anything that the Oireachtas can do by way of law which can attack marriage without attacking those other relationships, except perhaps the weird legal possibility that some mad Government in future might try to outlaw marriage and leave us all in durable relationships.
I cannot see what is left or why there is an incentive to marry. As the Minister said, it is purely personal, and he pointed to himself when he said it. However, I do not accept the notion that marriage is purely personal or that the motive for marriage is purely personal. I do not believe that a society can regard with indifference whether people make the commitment involved in marriage or do not. The Constitution provides for strong restrictions as to when one marriage can be dissolved and another can be entered into. It states the couple has to be separated for five years and provision has to be made for the children of the marriage. If that is the case in marriage, why is it not the case in a durable relationship? Why is somebody who is party to a durable relationship entitled to leave legally and go on to get married the next day? Where is the special protection for marriage in those circumstances? What is so great about marriage is reduced to a set of obligations which nobody else in society is asked to undertake yet they are all guaranteed the same rights, family rights, whether they are married or not.
The Minister is shaking his head. I challenge him, in the course of this debate, and we will have more debates tomorrow, to come up with special things that marriage, as opposed to durable relationships, will entail from now on. Is the State going to say that this is confined to married people? One example, which may be slightly horrible, is that incest is prohibited to married people. People cannot marry their sisters. Degrees of consanguinity are prohibited for married people. They are not prohibited for durable relationships.
What is actually being protected from now on? What is special about marriage from now on? As Senator Garvey, who is in a single-parent family, says, if we give somebody who is in that position identical entitlements by way of family right as somebody who is married, what are we in fact saying is special about marriage thereafter? I do not hear the answers coming from the Minister's side. I would like to hear tomorrow, because I would like to give him time to think about it. Will the Minister stand up and tell us what it is that the State now regards to be special about marriage. It is a relationship, as I understand it, of mutual obligation between two adults, men or women, or both men or both women since the equality amendment. However, it is one that cannot be dissolved except by going to court. A court cannot dissolve it shortly after it is entered into because there has to be five years of separation and second, the children of it have to be looked after. Why should those obligations not apply to somebody who is drifting out of a non-marital long-term relationship and deciding to marry some other person, walking away from one relationship into another? Why should the obligations not apply? Will the Minister give us some good reasons? He can think about it overnight. What is it about marriage for which the Constitution provides all these special protections and says it can only be dissolved in certain circumstances but it does not matter because you can enter into a relationship and it will have none of those consequences?
A number of Government speakers here this evening supporting the Minister, and others, have said that in their view the taxation system should effectively be the same for a couple who are in a durable relationship as they are for a married couple. I wonder about that, because as I understand it, the Minister is not even confining durable relationships which subtend marriages to sexual relationships at all. Brothers and sisters may be able to qualify. Where is it? If there is a durable relationship between members of a family or good friends or cousins who have looked after each other all their lives, I do not see why they should be discriminated against compared with a married couple.
To go back to the Murphy case, regarding Francis and Mary Murphy, the basis on which tax allowances were doubled and tax bands were doubled was not to do with children as was the case in the O'Meara case today. They did not enter into the equation at all. It was because of the special status of marriage under the Constitution. That is what the Supreme Court decided then. In regard to tax consequences for cohabiting couples, almost inevitably, it would not require a very brainy lawyer to bring a case to the courts arguing that a cohabiting couple wants the same as a married couple, that their circumstances are identical, that they have three children with their partner; that as married couples get double band allowances and their partner lives in the home and looks after the three children, the client wants double the income tax allowances and double the bands in future, as well as double all the allowances for all of the other taxes that may or may not affect them. I want the Minister to tell us that he has thought that through and that that is not going to happen, that such a court case cannot happen and that a Murphy mark II will not take place. If it does take place, and this is the other side of the coin, the motive to marry will be completely undermined.
I will turn now to deal with the 40th amendment and what Ms Justice Denham said. I do not accept the point made by Senator McGreehan in her contribution that she was a privileged woman in some respect. Ms Justice Denham said Article 41.2 does not assign women to a domestic role. Article 41.2 recognises the significant role played by women and mothers in the home. This recognition does not exclude women and mothers from other roles and activities. There is nothing elitist or unrealistic about that. It is the plain truth. The Irish version of the Constitution says that it is women's role in the family, sa teaghlach, that the State recognises as invaluable.
I will end on this point because I will elaborate on it tomorrow. There seems to be an absolute determination on the part of this Government to reduce everybody in society simply to the role of person, to maintain there is no functional distinction between men and women, that they are all equal in every respect and that their roles in society are equal. I do not accept that proposition at all. Men and women are equal in law. I believe men and women are equal as human beings but I do not accept that men's role in society and women's role in society are indistinguishable or that no legal recognition can be given to gender. I blanch when I see a reference in recent legislation to the proposition that we do not refer to women who are pregnant, rather that we speak about persons who are pregnant. What is this agenda to reduce everyone to atomic persons with interchangeable roles and fluid genders? What is it all about?
Senator, we can thrash this out tomorrow.
It is a broader agenda which has been driven by a tiny minority in Ireland and a small and broken minority within the Government.
We already had a debate on the family in respect of the first amendment so I will not go there. The Seanad is supposed to stick to the amendment being debated. The Constitution currently states: "In particular, the State recognises that by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved." That is straightforward. The Constitution is stating that if the woman is not in the home, the common good cannot be achieved. That is the bottom line. That is a quote from Bunreacht na hÉireann. What we want it to state instead is that the State recognises that care within and outside the home, and family, give to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved. I cannot see how anybody can have any issue with that. It is completely sexist to say that if women are not at home, the common good cannot be achieved. That is ridiculous in this day and age. It is completely sexist. It does not represent many homes these days.
I would appreciate it if Senator McDowell would listen to me. I listened to him when he was objecting to the change. A woman's place is wherever she bloody well wants. That is the bottom line. In the Constitution, we are told that if the woman is not at home, the common good cannot be achieved. It is black and white. I do not appreciate the muddying of the waters because it means people who want to vote will be confused. It is simple. The Constitution at the moment states that a woman "gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved". We are saying that the State ought to recognise that care within and outside the home, and family, give to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved. I hope my colleagues can see the difference.
I have many friends who would not be able to be the brilliant professional women they are without the men in their lives or the mothers in their lives giving the care and enabling us to have good women out in society. We want balance everywhere, including in every boardroom and in the Seanad. Senator McDowell is still not listening to me. We want balance everywhere and we will not get balance if Bunreacht na hÉireann is not supporting women and states we are not going to succeed as a society unless the women are staying at home all the time. That is what it currently states and there is no debate. It is proposed instead-----
Why do we have maternity leave then?
I am sorry but it is my turn to speak now. I did not interrupt the Senator.
Why do we have maternity leave now?
I did not interrupt the Senator.
The Senator wanted me to listen.
I did not interrupt the Senator.
I am listening to the Senator.
I did not interrupt the Senator so he should not interrupt me.
Why do we have maternity leave then?
Allow Senator Garvey to continue, without interruption.
It is proposed to remove the reference to the woman's life within the home and recognise the value of care and support which family members give to one another and which are a foundation for solidarity and cohesion within our society. I will say it again: a woman's place is wherever she bloody well wants to be. I do not appreciate Senator McDowell telling me that women should be at home.
I did not say anything of the kind.
Talk about inventing things.
It is my time now, guys.
It is not the Senator's time to mislead the House.
Show a bit of respect.
I never said that women's place is in the home.
A bit of respect.
The Senator knows that. She knows it.
A bit of respect.
It is a crude smear.
We will move to the next speaker, who is Senator Seery Kearney, and we will hear the Senator without interruption.
I am grateful to be able to debate this legislation to amend our Constitution. It is an extraordinary privilege to be in the Seanad and to be able to speak to it. I do not believe that this article has inhibited me at any point in my life. I need to say that. I do not believe it needs to be removed because it has been a blockage to me. However, in the past, it has led to assumptions or described particularly traditional positions in Ireland that, thankfully, are no more. Thankfully, we legislated for change and removed the marriage ban. It took us until 1991 to remove the concept that rape could not happen within marriage. There are Senators in this House who are younger than that. There have been traditional attitudes that ascribed particular roles to people and we have long since moved on from that. If women choose to stay at home and the families make the decision that to do so is in their best interests, they are quite entitled to do it. The same is equally true of the man. I am here tonight because my husband is at home and sending me snapshots of the Irish homework. The roles are interchangeable. We have long since moved on. That would be a motivation for change and to ensure that the language of our Constitution reflects the lived reality of our people.
The Constitution uses the term "without which the common good cannot be achieved". I believe there was a positive motivation to that when it was put into the Constitution. It was intended to safeguard and uphold women, and to put a red circle around them. I believe the motivation was well-intentioned although I would not be in agreement with the writer of the Constitution. The Constitution also states that "mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home". I have a problem with that. I do not like it. I think it is sexist language. It is unbecoming to the Constitution of a progressive country and a country that should embrace all sorts of care and reflect those different caring relationships and equality. Our legislation has, time and again, reflected those considerations. Women receive maternity leave because they are the ones who are carrying children. Those of us who do not do so do not get that leave. It is outdated and needs to be deleted. I am content with its replacement by references to care.
I have enormous empathy with disability groups. I know the Minister is engaging and has engaged with all of the groups, and I thank him for that. I know he has set up another meeting with representatives of Independent Living Movement Ireland. We need to clearly articulate that disability groups and representatives are very unhappy with the debate in the Dáil that left them voiceless and with a residual feeling that care is given to people with disabilities or disabled persons, and that they are passive recipients of care as opposed to people with agency and human rights. It is important that we honour that in this House and it does not go unsaid. I would not go as far as Senator Clonan but I understand why there would be a concern. We signed up to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, UNCRPD. We must move on the optional protocol as quickly as possible. That is important and would offer an assurance in the context of this debate. We must ensure the right of persons with disabilities to live independently and ensure that the right of that agency to be exercised is supported. Assisted decision-making and many other things suggest we are moving in that direction. We cannot make a change to the Constitution without clarification from the Government and all of us that where we are recognising the role of carers, we are in no way saying that people with disabilities or disabled persons are the responsibility of their families. They are holders of human rights in and of themselves and have rights to services, universal design and everything that goes with being citizens and residents of our country. It is important that we do that. Though I am absolutely advocating for a "Yes" vote, there are concerns in that regard.
I have a document asking me to reflect that many disabled activists and disabled persons' organisations are concerned that much of the debate in relation to the proposed fortieth amendment has almost ignored disabled people or included them as an afterthought as recipients of care. It goes on to state that representative groups would like to hear that the Government proposes to use the debate in the lead-up to the referendum to reaffirm the State's commitments to disabled people under the UNCRPD and how two "Yes" votes will make commitments to the lives of disabled people.
That is important. I do not think in any way we are seeking to undermine, but it is important we set out very clearly and confidently that we doing that and being sure.
I refer to the article and the enshrining of women. Over the years there have been many debates of women being financed or getting a payment from the State for being at home but it never gave those rights. We have moved to a place where carers are getting pension rights. The Minister, Deputy Humphreys, announced a whole raft of things and there has been a growth in carers’ rights over the past number of years, which is important. It is also important that we reflect the carer as a person. In many of the other debates in this House, we have seen that the voice of the carer can, at times, not be heard strongly enough and not appreciated strongly enough. It is important that we enshrine family carers in the Constitution. We see activists at the gates, we meet with them and we talk to parents with children with disabilities who are not getting services. We need to know that while they are caring, they are also activists and all these other things. The best way to really honour them in the Constitution is to make sure that their children have the services. We need to drive that on in a definite way.
I look forward to tomorrow’s debate. It is interesting if not slightly ill-tempered today. This is an extraordinary privilege. I have long studied the Constitution and here I am speaking to an amendment to it. It is quite a privilege that we should never lose sight of. It is our honour to attempt to shape and, in time to come when there are cases, of which I have no doubt there will be, that the debate in the House and the intentions of the legislators will all be part of that. It is important that it be mature and considered.
Hopefully, I will be forgiven for remaining seated. I am not able to stand for long periods at the moment, so I will be doing something that feels very unnatural.
I welcome the debate and the introduction of the Bill to amend Article 41, particularly related to the current sexist language within it, which refers to women having a life within the home and mothers having duties in the home. Many people, although not everyone, will agree that Article 41.2 is outdated, anachronistic and sexist. It is based on gender stereotypes that should have no place in a contemporary constitutional text. We should not confine women and mothers to lives and duties within the home and not refer at all to fathers having a role or responsibility in the home. This amendment seeks to delete, change or replace that language with different text, which is welcome.
It was said in the Lower House that we in the Labour Party are supportive of the aim behind the Government’s proposal but we would have liked to see a way to delete the sexist language while also ensuring there is meaningful recognition of care both within and outside the home, on which there is an amendment that we will discuss tomorrow. The citizens’ assembly took a strong view that the sexist language relating to women and mothers should indeed be deleted but replaced with a recognition of the role of care, and that care should be recognised and valued both within the home and the wider community.
The Joint Committee on Gender Equality took that up and explored it. There was pretty extensive engagement with carers, women’s groups and groups representing disabled people. This has all been said in the Lower House by my Labour Party colleagues, but I feel there was cross-party support for wording that they regarded as effective in expressing the wishes of the citizens’ assembly and ensuring that we would have a meaningful recognition of care in the Constitution for the first time on a gender-neutral basis that would recognise both care within and outside the home.
We feel the proposed wording falls a bit short of what both the citizens’ assembly and the Joint Committee on Gender Equality recommended. One of the ways is with respect to care being care being less expansive; we feel it is more restrictive. The Government’s definition would confine constitutionally recognised care to that provided by members of a family to one another by reason of the bond that exists among them. We would have liked to see a more meaningful recognition of care within and outside the home and family. I have spoken in the House previously about my own experiences with and thoughts on care, how I believe our system needs to change and how we are not in any way where we need to be with regard to what we provide for carers. Therefore, by default, we are letting down the people we have cared for.
Some important points have been made. When we are discussing care and the individuals providing it, it is important to acknowledge that the care is being provided because ultimately we believe the individuals receiving the care have a right to live a life of dignity, to live a life as wholly and fully as possible and to be able to participate in society in every way possible. Throughout this debate, there will be two different sides to that. I admit that I am concerned about some of the stuff I have seen online such as, “This does not affect me”, or, “This will not bother me”. Words do have meaning and we would like to have seen a broader meaning, particularly with regard to care.
It is important when we discuss this to note that according to census 2022, there were 299,128 providing regular, unpaid care. If I have my calculations correct, that figure has increased by 50% since 2016. That is a whole category of people and it is a big number. More than 200,000 provide unpaid care and are possibly sliding in under the radar or possibly are not falling in under any potential recognition. People possibly do not even know they are providing that care. Since I have been talking about care, people have told me that no one even knows the work they do and the care they are providing. It might be helpful for Government to be able to tell those people how this constitutional change may positively affect them because I am hopeful this will be a positive change.
I will not go on and on about the fact that we want the recognition of caring both within and outside the home, but that could have been a radical move by Government and something beyond progressive, pushing the envelope and recognising there are now more than 200,000 carers in this country who could benefit in all sorts of different ways from the wording the proposal. I am interested in how the Government will enact this perhaps progressive realisation of stronger support for care both within and outside the home. What measures might come out of this constitutional change? Is it through policy or legislation? How is it different from what we are currently doing? It would be important for Government to do that to build the support as we go forward into this.
The citizens’ assembly report placed immense value on care and it made important recommendations on how State support for carers and those receiving care could be strengthened. The Joint Committee on Gender Equality, which was chaired by my colleague, Deputy Bacik, proposed an action plan for Government with a timeframe as to how the citizens’ assembly recommendations could be implemented to provide a stronger provision for childcare and care for disabled people, care that would also recognise agency and enable independent living, care for older persons, better provision of pay for carers and all so on. That would be an important piece of this because I fear this conversation will perhaps run away from everyone and become, as these things sometime happen with referendums, about something it is not.
It strikes me. I am not a constitutional expert, nor am I a referendum expert, but it is quite unusual, if I recall correctly, to have a referendum that does not, for example, come with a heads of Bill, what this would look like or how this will meaningfully affect people. Therefore, there is a body of work to be done in that regard.
We already know that carers are unsung heroes. We talked about them through Covid-19 and all of those other things. As I said, I will not go around and around on this.
The second thing that I feel the Government is falling short on with respect to the citizens’ assembly and the Oireachtas committee is the wording of “striving” to provide such provision. The committee stated, "The State shall, therefore, take reasonable measures to support care". One wording is slightly stronger than the other. I am not particularly gung-ho about “strive to”. I do not know that it holds the Government to anything, either legally or constitutionally.
I have heard some people describe it as nebulous and say that it does not place the State under any obligation to provide such supports. People "strive" to do lots of things, particularly in January. I am therefore not sure whether that word has much meaning or if it places any enforceable obligation on the State to provide supports. We would like to see care and receiving care, including outside the family home, put in as a right. That would chime particularly well with the people and, perhaps, send a very strong signal to the 200,000 people who provide care and those who have to receive care about the progressiveness of this Government and wanting to effect meaningful change.
I am reflecting on this referendum. It strikes me that we are restricting the concept of care. Perhaps we are not doing so fully, but it feels a bit like this conversation will be about restricting the concept of care in the home. We do not really think of care like that any more. No one thinks of care in a modern world or society as just something that is provided between family members, so that may need to be teased out a little more. The separation of what we mean by care and who receives it, who gives it and who is and is not recognised by the State might be something for the Government to consider as we go on with this over the coming weeks.
I will end on this thought. The Government does not need the imprimatur of the Constitution to improve care in Ireland. We do not need the Constitution to ensure stronger provision of childcare. We do not need the Constitution for stronger provision of care for disabled people. We do not need the Constitution to tell us that we need to provide better care for older persons. We very much do not need the Constitution now to tell us that we need to provide better care and conditions for carers, both within and outside the home. All of that can be done without this referendum and, therefore, while we welcome taking the sexist, outdated language out of the Constitution, and everything, including the Constitution, should be a feminist piece of work, there are lots of things that can and should be changed that do not require this referendum to do so.
I will begin with one word that relates and will relate to this. I will comment on the question of family. I find quite extraordinary the idea that marriage is considered valuable only if other people's families are not recognised. That is what is being talked about here. Being very clear, there is no change to the definition of "marriage" in any of what has been proposed. It reminds me a little of the marriage equality referendum campaign, when there were people saying their marriages would be somehow less valuable if gay people were allowed to marry. That is simply not the case. Their marriages are just as valuable as they were. They said that their marriages would be less valuable if we were to recognise a woman and her two children as a family and that we were making their marriages less valuable. I find that extraordinary. They asked, "What is in it for us? What is in it for married people?" One thing that should not be in it for them is the entitlement to have others labelled as not families or to have the 40% of children in this State who are born to people who are not married told, "You were not born into a family." That is a bit of an unreasonable ask. Tax measures are fine. They are probably covered already by the clause, which will still be in the Constitution, which states that the State will protect marriage. That is pretty reasonable. However, the idea that you need others to be marked as "less than" for your marriage to matter I find unacceptable. It is unacceptable in the Constitution now, and I do not believe it is an acceptable argument.
I ask the Senator to speak to this Bill.
I come to this Bill now because what I have said relates to one of the aspects of the article we are discussing. It should be borne in mind that the clauses in it applied only to the family, so if there were any positive social policy implications at all, they applied only to women who were married. There was nothing for one-parent families in any of the social policy measures we have had or have not had in this State.
There are a few elements in this clause. I was strongly against a straight removal and argued very strongly against that for a number of years, even before I came into this House. I argued that a straight removal was insufficient. When we talk about this benign interpretation of what was intended at the time, we need to be clear that this came in the 1930s, after the Eucharistic Congress, accompanied by a raft of other measures, including the measure removing women from juries because, of course, if they were on juries, it would distract them from their duties in the home. That was Kevin O'Higgins's law to get women out of juries. It was accompanied by the marriage bar, which came in in the 1930s. These measures were not part of the founding of the early part of the State. They were brought in as a wave. We know that McQuaid, not then yet archbishop, was literally sending in written suggestions for the Constitution.
Let us therefore be clear as to where this came from. Many of those who campaigned against it in 1937 did so because they saw the framing and what it was coming from. Part of the line, "that by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support", is a bit of a dig at those whose life outside the home not just gave to the State a support but actually gave us our State. I refer to the many women who were involved in the movement to create our State. It was many of those who campaigned in 1916 and who were part of the War of Independence who actually came out and campaigned against this Constitution because they saw that it did not reflect their role in the State. It certainly does not reflect the role of women now in the State. I was, however, passionately against a pure removal because we have to look to what is valuable, and it is important that there be a recognition of care and a recognition that people's lives are not simply economic units or at work or what they do outside, and that what happens in the home, what happens within families and what happens in terms of the care between us is valuable. Care is the invisible support structure. It is the lifeblood of a society. It is what we all rely on. That gives a support to the State. That recognition is crucial.
I come to my concerns about how this is done, and I hope the Minister can address them. The framing we have here is much narrower than that suggested by the Joint Committee on Gender Equality. That disappoints me. I am not saying it is not still a step forward, but it is very narrowly framed. The Minister spoke about the idea of "strive to support". We need to know what that will mean. Will "strive to support" be substantial? Will it be that strenuous and great effort? Will it be more than "reasonable measures", which is what the committee had suggested? Will it be more than "endeavour to ensure", which is the current language in the Constitution, language which, again, applies only to married women, not to men or any of the other families? Will it be stronger than "endeavour to ensure", in terms of what the State will commit to? The Minister spoke about the State having robust care infrastructure and a professional care system that wraps around family care. That is something, but how will that be asserted? Again, I want to ensure that the State will not come back and argue in the courts, "We did not mean much by 'strive'", when people say, "The professional care system and the supports you are giving me are not enough." I want to ensure we will not have a combative State that seeks to dilute the term. The Minister needs to come back, being clear, and bring in the legislative measures and the social policy measures that show he is really serious about this. I refer to things like, for example, the statutory entitlement to home care, which is long overdue. I have been here eight years and, again, I campaigned on that before I was ever elected to the Seanad. We were looking for a statutory entitlement to home care. That needs to come.
There is another issue. We will table a really good amendment. I regret that we have this symbolic date rather than a time. We will have a recommendation whereby we will talk about the bonds between family and community because the connections and the bonds between us in care are not limited to the bonds between family. They are the bonds between community as well. That should be recognised. That does not come into the commercial concerns that have been mentioned. It addresses the fact that the duty we have, including the duty reflected in our public services, is a collective one.
I am also concerned that the language refers to "provision of care to" rather than addressing the question of "care between". That is important because we do not want to have any perceived hierarchy between the persons receiving care and the persons giving care in that sense.
Others have asked the Minister about the UNCRPD. I ask him to be clear that this will be complementary to and not in conflict with the UNCRPD. Whatever justiciable rights may come from a change to the Constitution crucially there must be justiciable rights reflected by the optional protocol to the UNCRPD being ratified so that every individual in the State who has a disability is able to seek and vindicate their own rights under the UNCRPD. That is how the Government can show that it is serious. I regret that we are not as far as we should be on that. I hope that one of the next referendums we have is something like have seen in Spain this week. This week Spain is changing its constitution to provide that public administrations will pursue policies that guarantee the complete autonomy and social inclusion of people with disabilities. Would that not be amazing? Maybe that is what we need to look at next.
Returning to the question of care, the Minister talked about the wraparound piece. It should not just be a wraparound around the families. It needs to go beyond that so that there are supports of care for those even if they are not in a relationship of a family caring for them, but independent rights. That is what I am talking about with the UNCRPD. We are not simply talking about and narrow version of care where the State abdicates its responsibility and passes it to families.
When we talk about making the care infrastructure meaningful, will the Minister ensure that the economic measures are there? That is something that resonates; it is one of the phrases. The hard language in the Constitution was "endeavour to ensure". That is what needs to be set up against. The other important piece is the State's recognition. Through our contributory system and pensions which recognise care, will the State recognise this in terms of addressing the social welfare supports that are really important? When we talk about care, it is not just supporting care in the moment but supporting the capacity of persons to give care while knowing that the State will also economically care for them and make sure that they are able to make that choice and that contribution. We need to hear not just about services, but about the other forms of support the State will offer and the timeline for those.
Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire. I welcome the opportunity to speak in the debate on the 40th amendment to our Constitution. For a long time, the gendered, sexist language in the existing wording in the Constitution has been criticised. I echo what Senator Higgins said that while many of us have criticised the existing language, we are also very cautious about a straight deletion to the reference. It was widely acknowledged by the citizens' assembly that the role of caregiving deserves to be recognised and valued by our society. Those are the bonds that hold us together. Currently carers are not respected or valued by the State. Every day we hear stories of carers who go about their thankless job of caregiving. They are often exhausted, worn out and cannot get respite. They fight a constant uphill battle to access services and supports for the individuals they are providing care for.
It is regrettable, therefore, that when the opportunity came up to amend our Constitution to remove the sexist language from it and replace it with a recognition of the value of care, it has failed to offer genuine change. I ask the Minister to outline why the Government failed to accept the wording of the committee and instead has offered a weakened text which is deeply regrettable. As others have mentioned already, instead of accepting the Oireachtas committee's recommendation that the State has an obligation to take reasonable measures to support care within the home and the wider community, it feels like all the work done the citizens' assembly and the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Gender Equality was in vain. Both of those bodies spent a long time very carefully going over the reasoning not to have a straight deletion and for ensuring that care is recognised. They worked diligently and engaged with all the stakeholders, with civil society, with disability groups and with carers themselves. They brought forwards proposals in a transparent and democratic manner. I urge the Minister to explain why the committee's wording which had cross-party political support was not accepted. Why is it that the best we can offer carers is that we will strive to support care?
I congratulate FLAC on today's win at the Supreme Court. The FLAC CEO, Eilis Barry, rightly pointed out that the word "strive" is like a new year's resolution. The Government may have the best of intentions and may absolutely be 100% committed to trying to achieve it, but it is not an enforceable obligation for it to fulfil its resolution. That is the wrong message to give to carers across the country. It fails to provide them with the clarity and respect they deserve.
We are about to fight a referendum campaign. In the other referendums we have had in recent years it was very clearly set out what the difference would be for somebody's life if they voted "Yes" or if they voted to retain the status quo. I do not think we can tangibly point to the difference this amendment will make. What will it offer carers? As has been pointed out by disability rights groups and FLAC, should the referendum pass, it is deeply concerning that the reference in the Constitution will restrict people with disabilities to being objects of care. That is coming from those organisations; it is not me saying that. That is their real legitimate concern.
Every day we see and hear the advertisements informing us that disability rights are human rights. Yet by adopting the current proposal we are nearly narrowing the narrative of disabled people from being active citizens in society to being a group of people who are a burden of care or receivers of care. That does a huge disservice to disabled people who have participated in other campaigns for a more inclusive Ireland. They have campaigned for other changes to our Constitution to make Ireland more progressive for others. Disabled people are voters and taxpayers. Like carers, they also need to hear how this proposed referendum will deliver any meaningful change for them. How will it enable them to live independent lives? Disabled people want to hear how a real personal assistance service will be delivered.
By removing that gendered language of care from our Constitution we may have symbolically liberated women from the home, but people with disabilities want to hear how they will be liberated by this amendment. I have yet to hear a good argument for that. It will be a difficult referendum to fight for if we cannot point to the tangible differences it will make to carers and people with disabilities.
I wish to share two minutes of my time with Senator Conway.
Is that agreed? Agreed.
I thank the Minister for being here today. As my colleague, Senator Seery Kearney said, it is an absolute privilege to be speaking on a constitutional amendment. It is an honour to be able to stand here and have our voice heard on this debate along with so many people across the country.
The Irish Constitution, Bunreacht na hÉireann, dates back to 1937. As we all know it covers the fundamental law of the State. It is also about the rights of all of us as citizens of this country. Consent is needed and this is why we are having this debate. This is why it will go to a constitutional referendum. Regarding this 40th amendment, the Constitution currently states, “by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved”.
It also states:
The State shall, therefore, endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home.
As the Minister mentioned in his opening statement, the intention of the Government is to recognise the role of caring and to replace this with text such as Article 42B where:
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, [and it] gives to Society a support without which the common good cannot be achieved and shall strive to support such provision.
As a representative and an Irish citizen, I speak to my own experience of looking after a loved one together with family members. Many people in Ireland have experience of looking after loved ones, and of course, family members looking after children or, in my particular case, older family members. In Ireland today, we have the highest ever population, excellent long-life expectancy, and we are looking at healthy and active ageing. I was so fortunate to have family members living to the age of 90 and with minds so much better than my own. The report titled Health in Ireland: Key Trends 2022 showed and indicated that Irish women in this country are living to an average age of 84 years of age. Again, for Irish men, the average age is 81. Therefore, when we look at Ireland now compared to the Ireland of 1937, our State has to acknowledge at a very practical level the additional supports that of course are needed to support family members who care for loved ones. These loved ones live long, healthy and active lives but also may have many complex conditions that require care in the home. When we speak about caring, this amendment speaks to how we as a Government and as representatives are striving to support such provision. The Minister mentioned in his opening statement that this amendment is to recognise caring as a public good. I highlight that from what I have seen in my experience, and I am aware much has been done around pension provision for long-term carers particularly for the Minister, Deputy Humphrey's area of social protection as well, there are so many areas we need to improve. They are already there but when it comes to carers leave across many roles and sectors of employment, we need to look at how that is managed. There is allocation for carers leave already in many of our public sector areas and this is taken into account. However, can we stand over the fact that this happens across the board? Young people may not have come across this yet but there will come a time in nearly everyone's life when they will be spending time looking after a loved one and have to put their lives on hold in order to do that and we as a Government and as representatives in these Houses of the Oireachtas have to fight to ensure people are able to take that leave when needed.
I mention the access to home-help hours. Again, as a Government, we have looked to increase the number of home help hours but there is so much more that needs to be done to support families in the home to look after loved ones. We speak about independent living and being able to live for as long as possible in our homes but in order to do that there are practical considerations and we have to consider how to do that. Part of that is home help hours and part of it is supporting public health nurses in order that they are able to go out and acknowledge there is a need, also for people who live on their own. If we do not do that and intercede at an early stage, this striving to ensure we are supporting caring is going to fall short. We are doing a lot of work in the Department of Health under the Minister, Deputy Donnelly. I would also like to speak about the delivery of care in the home, and the Minister might speak to how this affects all Departments, when we say we strive to support this as a Government. It is across all Departments, local authorities and local government. How are we ensuing that people can access those home adaptation grants that allow people to live longer in their homes? That is another part of this. There are so many elements to it. We are now inserting this into the Constitution which shows the Government is going to make changes. It already has but it has to show how it is going to improve. What is its ambition here? How are we going to support the fact that people are living longer now in Ireland? I am speaking particularly to the role of carers looking after older people and to acknowledge that.
I would also like to acknowledge, as we are talking about carers, the role of palliative care, hospices and so on. The two areas at which I am looking relate particularly to the Department of Health and the Department of housing and local authorities, namely, the role in delivering mobile care and telehealth and how we as a Government will advance that. I am speaking on many different areas here but the ambition we have in this constitutional amendment ensures that we have to drive forward with an electronic patient record and can deliver digital health and ehealth to the home so that people can access health in the home, can have a remote monitor in the home to check for Afib and can access to the latest technology in the home so they can stay in the home. That is what this is about. It is also about ensuing carers have the supports and are not having to go to GPs or consultants and sit in waiting rooms or emergency departments for 24-hours. It is about ensuring this does not happen. When I am talking about this amendment, I will be fighting about the practical aspects of what I want to see this and future Governments achieve. To me, it is about the practical supports with which we as a State and a country are supporting people to be able to live and stay within the home and about supporting the carers in order to do that, using every measure at our disposal. That includes technology as well and ensuing people can live as long as possible in as healthy and active a way as possible in the home and that we are supporting carers in how they do that. Carers are burnt out. They are at high levels of exhaustion. I deal with it every day in our office in Ballinasloe, and Senator Mullen would know this as well. We live in areas, particularly rural areas, where older people live. I see this as an ambitious target that we are setting for Government. This striving to ensure we are acknowledging caring as a key role is for Ireland now and in the decades ahead.
I agree 100% with everything my colleague, Senator Dolan, has said, and indeed others. There is a job of communication to be done here and I hope we learn the lessons from other scenarios within Government and get the communication of this message right. There are people in homes across the country who are caring for loved ones, including elderly loved ones and children with profound disabilities and I am not talking about people with disabilities who play a significant and very valued active role in society. I am talking about people such as the woman I met on Friday who was caring for two autistic non-verbal children who are still in nappies at nine years of age, and who, quite frankly, is saving this country an absolute fortune by caring for them at home. People like that do not feel valued and respected. There are many people, including Members of this House, who are have cared at home for elderly relatives and they know full well the difficulties and challenges, but also the great sense of fulfilment, achievement, love and caring, that comes from it.
However, this referendum is critical. I have fundamental issues with the Constitution in general because we have not reformed it. There is a whole raft of areas within the Constitution that really need to be reformed, looked at, and on which we need to have referendums, but that it is a discussion for another day. This is a critical referendum and the result will send a clear message to the thousands and thousands of people who are caring for loved ones within the home. I sincerely hope this legislation passes and that the people will have an opportunity to support this on 8 March.
On a point of order, it may be that by extending the time by a few minutes, it would enable everybody to speak. The Acting Leader and the Minister might be amenable to that. I thought I would raise it at this point.
I do not have the permission of the Leader to do that. The Senator will remember we dealt with this before Christmas on the rather excitable day in the House.
That is why I raised it now because perhaps the necessary permission could be sought.
Certainly, I will text the Leader and ask her.
It is no secret that many people think this Bill and the referendums that will be held on foot of it are a gigantic waste of money and time. I am sick to the teeth of this Government frittering away its time and resources on complete non-issues while continuing policies that inflame the actual problems of this country that people want to see fixed. The Government is putting these dual referendums to the people to see what they want. I wonder what would happen if we asked members of the public what they actually want to vote on. If we asked the entire country to choose one thing the Government is doing that they would change, how many people would respond, "Gosh, we need to get it to alter this pesky Constitution, as it has been holding me back psychologically". How many would kill for the chance to vote on immigration, housing or the HSE? Of course, that would be giving up too much power to the people. They must only be allowed to nod or to shake their heads at whatever the Government serves them up, and sometimes not even that. We are left with this Bill, which will be pushed through this House, as it was in the Dáil, by the Executive's control over the Legislature, and which I hope will be rejected by the people. The Minister wants to remove the only instance of the words "woman" and "mother" from the Constitution, after which we will not get a mere mention in the foundation document setting out our rights. Women do not want to be reduced to non-gender language.
The public has been fed a cock-and-bull story about this referendum being about how the woman's place is in the home, feeding into the popular misconception that the Constitution contains some provision along these lines when, in fact, we know that what exists is a protection for women who wish to work in the home and serve this country by raising a family. Despite the fact that the Government recently set up a national counter-disinformation strategy working group, this identification of misinformation or disinformation appears to only work one way. There is no outlet for citizens to point out that the misinformation on this referendum is coming from the Government itself. The establishment narrative has been that this is a historical chance to get rid of sexist and outdated wording in the Constitution, give wider recognition to carers and modernise the definition of a family following the now very tired Government playbook of portraying itself as being the leading global figure on the cutting edge of any and all progressive causes. I, for one, do not view the erasure of women as something worthy of being progressed.
The current wording of the Irish Constitution recognises that women and mothers play an important role in the home. This does not negate the vital role men and fathers play in the home, nor does it confine women to the home or tie us to the kitchen sink, dishwasher or cooker. As Senator McDowell pointed out, this article in no way diminishes any choice for mothers. Rather, it casts the obligation on the State to amplify women's free choice on whether to work outside the home by assisting those who freely choose to work in the home and would otherwise be forced, against their wishes, to engage in labour outside the home.
We have had a female President for 21 of the last 33 years. Women in this country have every freedom to develop rewarding careers in areas that can be freely chosen. Much ado has been made about the presence of this article in our Constitution existing as some sort of background psychological radiation, polluting the air and causing women to self-limit in their employment aspirations. This is complete rubbish and I challenge anyone to find a single woman who would say that the existence of Article 41.2 has limited her in any way. The current wording in the Constitution gives women and mothers a solid foundation for wider recognition in Irish society and provides a basis on which to strengthen current laws that support women and mothers in their work, including in the home. Former Chief Justice Susan Denham stated the following in a 2001 case:
Article 41.2 does not assign women to a domestic role. Article 41.2 recognises the significant role played by wives and mothers in the home. This recognition and acknowledgement does not exclude women and mothers from other roles and activities.
[...]
The work is recognised because it has immense benefit for society.
If the public at large knew what is actually contained in Article 41.2, women the length and breadth of the country would be clamouring for it not to be retained but implemented. A 2017 survey of Irish mothers found that, given the choice, 62% of them would prefer to stay at home to raise their children. How many women in Ireland are engaged in labour due to economic necessity to the neglect of their duties in the home? There are hundreds and thousands of them, at least. These mothers are forced to work because the economic policies of successive Governments have made it impossible for a family to survive on a single income. Many mothers are expressing the view that they wished they had known about this protective guarantee to allow them to stay at home.
Mothers are denied a choice of staying at home with their children because they cannot afford to do so. Rather, they must work, only to be forced to use a significant chunk of their earnings to pay for childcare, employing a stranger to mind their own children whom they would much rather mind themselves. It is a bonkers system. That is what women are forced to do through economic necessity because the Government is not abiding by the Constitution. Now, rather than supporting women who wish to work in their homes, the Government wants to remove the obligation to them and water down the Constitution to say it will "strive" to support carers. I do not view this as progress. It is another cynical step towards attempting to erase sex difference in society because progressives have deemed the innate difference between men and women to be problematic. The Government should step up to the plate rather than lowering the bar. It should abide by its constitutional obligations to support mothers in the home. It could spend the €20 million and a large portion of the money it will give to kowtowing NGOs on examining financial supports for mothers to allow them to remain in the home, for example, some form of universal basic income, tax reliefs for husbands or increasing the one-parent family payment on a per-child basis.
Like the rest of the West, Ireland is in the grip of an unmentioned fertility crisis. The birth rate has decreased every year since 2008. It now stands at 1.78 births per woman, well below the replacement rate of 2.1. The birth rate has more than halved since 1973. This is a population implosion timebomb and the Government is doing nothing about it. Any serious Government would immediately implement proactive family-positive fiscal measures and begin urgent work on identifying and rectifying the economic and societal ills that are suppressing birth rates. This Government will not do that. Why worry about the future of Ireland, its children, demographics and culture when there is the next election to worry about or when taxpayers' money can be spent on national-scale virtue signalling? Out there on the ground, there is an appetite for big, serious and real change, not this. For me, that change cannot come fast enough. For now, I will be voting "No" to this Bill.
We have failed to contact the Leader or Deputy Leader to extend the time for today's business. I ask that Senators Currie, Sherlock, Craughwell and Mullen confine their contributions to five minutes each. I apologise for constraining the debate but I hope they will be able to speak again in the coming days.
We could adjourn Second Stage until tomorrow.
That was not agreed as part of the Order of Business, which has been set. I hope Senators will agree to give everyone an opportunity to speak. Is that agreed? Agreed.
I am not sure if Senator Mullen was trying to say this matter is irrelevant and therefore not worth the time or is so important that we need more time.
We need more time but I think this is a very important referendum and I will be voting "Yes, Yes" to it.
I am conscious that I am coming to this debate today reflecting my own experiences and views, which brought me into politics. This is personal. It will be for the diversity of women we meet on the doorsteps and see coming through the doors of Leinster House. I am not a constitutional lawyer and I do not work in law but I have worked in the corporate world and have worked as a stay-at-home mum. I find both hugely rewarding and hugely challenging in equal measure. I hold two beliefs. One is that regardless of whether you work in a boardroom growing your revenue or in your sitting room raising your children, your choice should be valued and supported. The second belief I hold is that as a Government and State, we should de-gender those choices around care and formal economic activity. I do not believe that caring duties should be seen as something women predominantly do. The assumption in the past was that gender equality was dependent on economic independence and a revolution in the workplace but I also believe that we need a revolution in our homes when it comes to sharing care. I do not necessarily mean that it is divided 50:50 on a daily basis. I mean that more men take up the role of care in the home than we see at the moment. At the moment, we are all very familiar with the second shift where most women who work go home to take on the majority of caring duties as well. As a Government, we have progressed corrective policies in order to address gender equality but we also need positive policies in order to bring about that revolution in the home. I am voting "Yes" to this referendum to remove gendered language and see Ireland become one of the first countries in the world to enshrine the value of care in its Constitution.
I am even happier to hear the Minister say that there is an onus on the State for the progressive realisation of support for care and that it is not symbolic as it was in 1937. What does that look like? This conversation is really important as part of this debate. It is about accessible and affordable childcare so that women and men have a choice about whether they will work in the home or return to work. It means building on paid paternity leave and bringing it closer to maternity leave and looking to countries like Iceland, which have a required timeframe for sharing parental leave. It is about the Minister looking at his work-life balance Bill and not just introducing flexible work for parents and carers because my concern is that the people who will take that will still be women. In order to democratise flexible work, you must normalise it. We should be looking to countries like Finland where there are core working hours that give flexible work to everybody and allow parents to juggle caring duties and work. You will see the number of women in work is higher there and that the number of hours fathers spend with their children is higher. It is about a basic income for carers and moving away from the means-tested carer's allowance. It is about support for people to allow them to live independently. It is about a carer's guarantee. It is about supporting our disability groups and family carers.
I agree with removing gender stereotypes. We are recognising all families in society and recognising that it is the family and the people in that family that constitute the primary unit in society and not the institution of marriage.
I would love to have been standing here today and saying how important this referendum is and talking about the profound impact it would have on recognising and supporting care in this country. I was very excited about the prospect of replacing this outdated reference to women in the home and talking about supporting care in all its forms. We were given so much hope that by the recommendations of the citizens' assembly and the Oireachtas committee that we would have ground-breaking progress.
When we look at what is in front of us, we can see there is some bit of progress. Striving to support the provision of care by family members is something in itself. Overall, we have been reduced to saying that this constitutional change is a first step and that an explicit recognition that some of the caring situations in this country is better than no recognition at all but this is not good enough.
When I think about the range of caring situations in this country, I am thinking in particular about those who rely on care outside the home, particularly those with a disability who want to be empowered to live independently and who depend on various types of care for a decent quality of life. What does this constitutional change say to them? The wording before us greatly worries me because it entrenches a notion of dependency on the family for care and there is a rather patronising notion that family has to be part of the care that needs to be provided. There is also a gendered aspect to it because we know that of the caring situations that arise in this country, about 61% of them are provided by women and of course, it is the women within families. It is the mothers, daughters, aunts, nieces and sisters who provide that care within the family and will continue to do so. Rather than having a rights-based approach, which was what I was really hoping for, that would empower those who need care in this country, it feels like we are entrenching that patronising notion that it has to take place within the family. I am thinking in particular of a woman named Fiona I have had reason to engage a lot with over the past two years. She is 42 years of age, has an intellectual disability and the mental age of an 11-year-old and requires ongoing support but she also works in SuperValu for ten hours per week, goes hill walking and does a whole lot of other activities. She lives at home. Her parents, who are now coming into their 80s, want her to find sheltered housing. She cannot access that sheltered housing and I have been down that road with her trying to get it for her. The corrosive impact on her parents of knowing that there is nothing for their 42-year-old daughter when they go to their graves is horrendous. There is nothing in this referendum for that family because it needs care outside the home.
Despite my bitter disappointment about the wording of the referendum, I will be voting "Yes" and will go out and ask people to vote "Yes" because I believe it strengthens our hand with regard to those who are providing care in the home. If nothing else, it strengthens our hand to go out and ensure that we can see changes to the carer's allowance and move to a situation where it is no longer means-tested and is available to all those who provide care on a full-time basis or that we can press ahead with greater changes to address the disgraceful way the domiciliary care allowance is administered. I am thinking in particular of the family of a small girl from Dublin named Edie Tyrrell who moved here from Canada over the past two years. In Canada, she was recognised as having a disability and her parents were given a care allowance in respect of the care needs she has. When the family came to Ireland, her parents applied for the domiciliary care allowance and they were told that she did not have care needs beyond what a normal child of that age has. I am thinking of the disgraceful situation that applies to so many families where they must repeatedly apply to be recognised by this State.
I am conscious that progress often is not won by a revolution but through many tiny steps and I support this referendum because I believe it constitutes some progress. To persuade the raft of people who have their doubts, we need and wish to see a picture painted by the Minister and the rest of the Government as to what impact this reference to care will have on people's lives. We need to persuade people.
I have heard a lot this afternoon about mothers and I support the notion of removing some of the archaic language that is in our Constitution.
Shortly before my mother died, I visited her in Galway. The visit ended and while on my way home to Dublin, I thought about her and the impact she had on my life. I realised, by the time I got to Athlone, that I had never told her, so I turned around my vehicle and drove back to Galway. When I walked into her room she asked me what I was doing there. I said to her that on every important day of my life, she had been there and that I just wanted to say thanks. She got all emotional and I got all emotional and then I left. Why have I brought this into the conversation? My mother was never constrained by the Constitution. Her mother was never constrained by the Constitution. My father's mother was never constrained by the Constitution. My father's mother made her money renting swimming togs in Salthill and managed to build a house in one of the most prestigious places in Galway. My grandmother, when her husband died young, leased out the farm, opened up a guesthouse in County Mayo and reared a number of daughters, all of whom were industrious themselves as tailors, tailoresses, etc. They were never constrained. I had eight sisters, one of whom had Down's syndrome but the other seven all had professional or business lives; they were never constrained by the Constitution.
I have one difficulty with the new amendment being brought forward, the proposed Article 42B. It think is a good amendment until I hit the word "strive". What does the word "strive" mean? We try. That is really what it means. Senator Higgins has brought up the issue of citizens having to go to the courts to establish what something means. Citizens do not have the deep pockets the State has and we see in our appalling history how we dragged people through the courts who were dying. What are we going to say to the poor parents who have disabled children with constant care needs in their home? What are we going to say to those parents when we do not deliver for them? Are we going to say to them that we will strive and that we tried? Will we force them to go to the courts to prove that we did not try? The word "strive" in that particular amendment means absolutely nothing. The Minister, in his presentation here today, spoke about words having meaning. Putting in the word "strive" gives the State an opt-out. It gives the State the ability to say it tried, it was constrained by the resources and did not have the resources. We hear that every day of the week. Most of the speakers today have been talking about the disabled and how they have been treated appallingly by this country and by countless Governments down through the years but, sure, they strived to do their best. The word "strive" is too ambiguous. It is, as the Minister said in his speech, wishy-washy or symbolic. It is of no value whatsoever.
I understand that what we are talking about here is the extension of the area of care beyond the mother to the family. Senator Clonan spoke about this earlier today but to a certain degree, are we saying that when the parents of that child pass away - an issue Senator Sherlock has just talked about - we are expecting that some sibling will take over the reins and continue to look after somebody who is severely disabled? I am really shocked that Family Carers Ireland has supported this because it gives the State the ability to say, "Sure, we tried. We made an attempt." As the person who feels the State did not try or make an attempt, where do I have to go? I have to go to the courts and get a judicial review to establish whether the State did or did not try. I have to go through all the processes of proving the State did not do the job it meant to do.
The measure is good and proposes a good change to the Constitution. If the Minister takes the word "strive" out of it then I will canvass for it but leave the word in, and I will canvass for a "No" vote. The Minister is a decent guy who tries to push things through as best he can but the word "strive" diminishes the entire amendment to the Constitution.
I have a happy memory of my late grandfather, John Hobbs, who, when in a relaxed -perhaps post-libatory - state, said to me on more than one occasion, "Mind your mother. You could have 40 fathers but you will only have one mother". Even in the early 1980s, in my early teenage years, I had an idea of what he meant. I suspect that an awful lot of people, mothers included, feel there is something particularly special about the role of a mother in our lives in the family. One only has to go to a funeral where one will hear songs such as “A Mother's Love's a Blessing” and “Pal of my Cradle Days”. Truthfully, of course, on the men's side we have the song “The Old Man” and the line, "And I miss him, the old man." Certainly I loved my father and I would have very much supported an amendment which sought to put the stress not just on mothers and their duties "in the family", because those are the constitutional words as Gaeilge, namely, "ina ndualgais sa teaghlach", but also on the important role of fathers because we need to talk about the role of fathers in these days. Instead, we get bait-and-switch politics from the Government. It holds out to people the prospect of getting rid of, apparently, a sexist reference to women only in the context of home duties. It holds out the prospect of giving long overdue recognition to carer but what did it do? It proposes to give us a watery clause on care that means nothing and to get rid of any reference to mothers and the privileging of their duties in whatever way. Whether they are full-time or part-time in the home, any privileging of their duties is no longer facilitated and, of course, there is no reference to fathers. What are we really getting? The removal of the word "mother", woman, from the Constitution and the relegation of our understanding of what home means. These are big issues.
The Minister states he wants to include people who were excluded in the constitutional amendments but in fact being excluded are fathers, mothers and the importance of their duties in home life. In a way we can see the agenda of the ideological left operating here because the left prefers to see the State as the parent rather than the father and the mother. This is why, I am sorry to say, that people will suspect that this amendment has come from a particular wing within the Green Party, that is, shall we say, the watermelon dimension of the Green Party, green on the outside and red on the inside. The Government could have added the word "father" instead of excising the word "mother". Mothers, by their nature, play a significant role in the upbringing of children and so do fathers but the Government does not want to acknowledge any of that. The Minister thinks that human nature should subject itself to his mathematical notions of equality. There is no difference between men and women acknowledged. He cannot even define women because he believes the natural division of the sexes can be ignored. I refer to those in mainstream parties, whose main worry at this stage of the electoral cycle is, admittedly, to get their mug and their name on the ballot paper with their party's support. It amazes me that otherwise sensible politicians, the mainstream people in government, are acquiescing in something deeply cynical and highly irresponsible in terms of the public good because fathers, and mothers, in the context of their home duties do matter and the Minister is getting rid of all of that.
Is it the Government's intention to excise the reference to mother and remove the word "woman" from the Constitution? Who knows, but at a time when State services, such as those provided by the HSE, seek to excise the word "woman" and men are allowed into women's refuges, and women are forced to participate against men in women's sports, and the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment discourages children from using the word "mother", one is entitled to legitimate suspicions as to what is really going on here. All the more worrying then when one sees the way this legislation has been driven at coach-and-four speed through the Oireachtas without any chance of careful scrutiny. What messy future legal uncertainty is being created here? The Minister says not to worry; his Department has looked at this closely with the Attorney General and the Bills Office and there is nothing to see here.
However, what is the purpose of the Dáil and the Seanad if we are not allowed to scrutinise this carefully?
There is a lot to be concerned about the way the Minister has gone around this. It is bait-and-switch politics. The proposed amendment disses mothers and fathers and the difference between men and women in what they contribute to home life. If the best that can be done by the Government is to rake up the injustices of the past to advance this highly uncertain proposal, it is clear that it does not take its duties seriously with regard to protecting what the Constitution can do for people in seeking out the common good through policy and law.
I call on the Minister to reply. He has ten minutes.
I thank the Acting Chairperson and I also thank Senators for the detailed consideration that they have given the proposals set out in the Bill. The issues we are discussing here are not new. The need, as articulated by many, to amend Article 41.2 to remove the archaic language from that provision, has been discussed in many fora in Ireland through constitutional reviews and citizens' assemblies, and the need to take that action but, at the same time, recognising the value of care has also been acknowledged. That is why it is important that two changes are being proposed in terms of the removal of the language but also the introduction of that new onus and obligation on the State to support care.
Senators Hoey, Craughwell, Higgins and others discussed the idea that the State "shall strive". First, it is important to say that it is "shall strive" and, therefore, it is a mandatory obligation. It is a clear direction for the State to strive to support care. On the use of the word "strive", the signal is to make serious and sustained efforts to support family care. It is not just about trying, as Senator Craughwell indicated. It is a high level of obligation but it is a recognition that it is not something that can be achieved immediately. There is a progressive element to this and any politician who stands up and says every care issue can be solved just by one change to the Constitution is not telling people who rely on those services the truth. It is a recognition of that progressive element.
Different statements relating to the obligation were considered in bringing forward this legislation. It is the clear view of the Government that this is a higher standard than the term "endeavour to ensure", which is currently used in Article 41.2 and has not delivered anything for anybody, irrespective of one's view of the text of Article 41.2. It has not delivered € 1 or £1 into anyone's hand over the years. Inserting this new Article 42B into the Constitution places an onus on the State, the Oireachtas, this Government and future Governments to ensure that whatever supports for care are implemented comply with that new constitutional standard as set out in the article.
The issue of hierarchy has been raised in terms of the valuing of family care, and the risk of this being seen as diminishing the rights of others, particularly the rights and autonomy of people with a disability. It is very important to say that the word "care" has been used here. A lot of people have been saying we are elevating carers over others. The word "carer" is not stated in the new Article 42B. The word "care" is used. That has been chosen very deliberately to make it clear that we are committed to supporting family carers. That is part of the cohort who are supported by this but it also includes people living independent lives. There are two or more people in any care-based relationship, and using the word "care" rather than "carer" reflects the views of many disability advocates. The view that was expressed during the citizens' assembly process was that any measure that would suggest a hierarchy would be problematic. That is why that use of the term "care" is provided for rather than the term "carer".
I will speak to the points Senator Seery Kearney raised, and also those points Senator Clonan made in the previous debate. I always listen because we should listen to people who have lived experience in these areas. I very much understand Senator Clonan's lived experience with regard to his experience with his young son. What we are doing here, speaking to the area of disability specifically, is very much consistent with what we are seeking in Ireland's ratification of the UNCRPD, its assimilation of the obligations contained within that treaty, and obviously, in the context of what we are discussing here, Article 19 being particularly important with regard to independent living and living in the community. We are reflecting that in changes to the legislation. We had a very lengthy debate here last year on the assisted decision-making legislation, which recognised that change in the position of persons with a disability and the State stepping up with brand-new infrastructure, the Decision Support Service. I attended an event in Kilkenny this morning, SOS Kilkenny, with staff of the Decision Support Service, meeting people with intellectual disabilities, talking to them about how they were going to vindicate their rights and talking to their parents about how their now adult children will vindicate their rights under the new system.
What we are advancing here I see, and Government sees, as fully compliant with our UNCRPD obligations. The Government has been very clear in that it wants to ratify the optional protocol. I agree that we would like that to move swiftly. The passing of the assisted decision-making legislation was an important step in making Ireland UNCRPD-compliant.
It is also important to say that through the expressed obligation on the State to support family care, there is a recognition of the importance of the State investing in the wider infrastructure of care and the professional care services that provide supports to families to allow them undertake care. The care that we speak of in the new article is not located in the home; it is located in the family. That is relevant to the very important point Senator Sherlock made in that we need to examine the supports to the family for that young woman now and when her parents are deceased, to allow her remaining family to support her. We are not talking about the home; we are talking about the family. That understanding is important, and that is why the new Article 42B reflects a commitment to the progressive realisation of supports around a variety of key areas.
With regard to what the State striving to support care actually looks like, the question has been answered. I can give some examples of work that has taken place or is ongoing in this area. I am thinking about the work in my Department on care and cutting the cost of childcare for those parents who make a decision to use childcare. A very practical step there is the increase in pay we have been able to secure for workers in that sector. It is the first time that childcare workers have ever received a mandated pay increase through an employment regulation order. These are all steps that tangibly demonstrate the State supporting care. They are also steps directly coming from the citizens' assembly. They were two elements that the citizens' assembly clearly listed.
We also talked about the extension of leave for parents so both parents can spend more time with their newborn in those really important early days. Parental leave has gone from two weeks when this Government came to office to seven now. It will be nine weeks by the end of this year. I refer to the changes being made to the State pension system by the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Humphreys, to enable caring work over many years to be taken into account in consideration of PRSI contributions. That new system is taking effect from this month. We also increased the carers' allowance and the income disregard for the allowance in this year's budget. I think of the increases made in my own Department to the foster care allowance, which is going up €75 this year. These are all tangible examples of increased support from this Government and future Governments.
I always make this point because this is not an amendment that just applies to this Government, it will go forward. Whoever is in office this time next year will have to take account of it as well. I am running short of time.
I will speak on the tangible benefits and the work my Department, which now has responsibility for disability, is undertaking. The actions we are undertaking in the implementation of the disability action plan are central to the growth of an infrastructure of care through the funding of more PA hours and the provision of day services, etc, recognising that the individual needs of a person with a disability are very diverse. Our disability action plan recognises the full gamut of those needs and makes commitments on a long-term basis, recognising that the gulf is wide and we have a lot of catching up to do but sets out a clear plan to do that. The new national disability inclusion strategy is being discussed with DPOs, getting their input in compliance with our UNCRPD obligations.
To conclude - I thank the Acting Chairperson for her latitude - irrespective of people's views on the motivation behind Article 41.2, I and the Government believe that a constitutional provision that mandates duties for just one person - just for women in the home - does not meet the realities of care in Ireland today. We have this opportunity now to implement a provision in our Constitution that recognises that care is a role for everyone, for mams and dads, sons and daughters and brothers and sisters. Not only are we doing that, we are placing a clear legal obligation on the State that it shall seek to support that care. That is a tangible positive change for all involved in care. I commend the Bill to the House.
Vótáil.
Cuireadh an cheist.
Question put.
Will the Senators claiming a division please rise?
Senators Gerard Craughwell, Sharon Keogan, Michael McDowell and Rónán Mullen rose.
As fewer than five Members have risen I declare the question carried. In accordance with Standing Order 61 the names of the Senators dissenting will be recorded in the Journal of the Proceedings of the Seanad.
Faisnéiseadh go rabhthas tar éis glacadh leis an gceist.
Question declared carried.
When is it proposed to take Committee Stage?
Tomorrow.
Next week.
Is it agreed to take it tomorrow? Agreed.
International Women's Day would be a good day for it.
Céim an Choiste ordaithe don Chéadaoin, 23 Eanáir 2024.
Committee Stage ordered for Wednesday, 23 January 2024.
When is it proposed to sit again?
Tomorrow morning at 10.30 a.m.
Is that agreed?
It is not agreed.
Question, "That the House stand adjourned until 10.30 a.m. on Wednesday, 23 January 2024," put and declared carried.
Cuireadh an Seanad ar athló ar 8.03 p.m. go dtí 10.30 a.m., Dé Máirt, an 23 Eanair 2023.
The Seanad adjourned at 8.03 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Tuesday, 23 January 2023.