Sir, – Orla O’Connor of the National Women’s Council says that Article 41.2 of the Constitution “limits women to a life and duties in the home” and that a No vote “would say that we accept a Constitution that says a woman’s place is in the home” (“A Yes vote in the referendums won’t change women’s lives. A No vote would be truly retrograde”, Opinion & Analysis, January 6th).
This is simply not true. Article 41.2 explicitly acknowledges that many women will work outside the home. The language as it stands then goes on to say that no woman should be forced to leave the home by economic necessity.
It’s also noteworthy that each of the three policy changes which Ms O’Connor wants the Government to implement once Article 41.2 is abolished would benefit women who work outside the home, but none of them would benefit women who chose to remain at home to care for their children. This highlights the attitude of the National Women’s Council and other groups who seem to believe that any woman who works in the home is either a failure or is somehow selling out their own sex by not living up to their standard of a modern, ambitious career woman.
As a woman who gladly left behind a successful professional career to devote my life to raising my three children, I cannot accept these sentiments. For that reason, I will be voting No to this pointless and patronising referendum. – Yours, etc,
SARAH-ANNE CLEARY,
Strokestown,
Co Roscommon.
Sir, – Why add further confusion to the Constitution? If the proposed referendum adds the words “whether founded on marriage or other durable relationships” (plural) to its recognition of Family then surely “durable” and “relationships” will need Supreme Court definition. We know the date of a marriage, but what marks the start of a durable relationship?
This confusion is to be added to Article 41.1.1 that speaks of “a fundamental unit group . . . possessing inalienable and imprescriptible rights antecedent and superior to all positive law”. Article 6.1 of the Constitution states “All powers . . . derive, under God, from the people.” While we cannot be sure who speaks for God nowadays, surely the people are entitled to a clear definition of the family and for their positive law to reign supreme.
The UN has provided a definition. “Any combination of two or more persons who are bound together by ties of mutual consent, birth and/or adoption or placement and who, together, assume responsibility for, inter alia, the care and maintenance of group members, the addition of new members through procreation or adoption, the socialisation of children and the social control of members.”
With such a definition those who declare themselves to be a family could be recognised by the State as accepting the rights and responsibilities commensurate with being a family. This would provide a clear start date, and in the event of a dissolution, could provide for the equal distribution of assets, thus avoiding the ridiculous “proper provision” currently available on divorce and the utter confusion and inequity which pertains when a break-up comes at the end of a period of cohabitation. – Yours, etc,
PAUL FARRELLY,
Blackrock,
Cork.
Sir, – Orla O’Connor, director of the National Women’s Council of Ireland, claims of Article 41.2: “It gives the State the oppressive role of keeping women from careers or employment of their own, ensuring ‘that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home.’”
Article 41.2 does no such thing, as former chief justice Susan Denham has pointed out in Sinnott v Ireland (2001): “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.”
We can all see women in many roles, careers and jobs, clearly unimpeded by the Constitution.
Article 41.2.2 provides a guarantee of sorts that the State “shall endeavour to ensure” that mothers aren’t obliged to work outside the home. Many mothers have expressed the wish that they could have been enabled to stay at home, even for a while, to look after their own children.
In all its 50 years, did the National Women’s Council of Ireland ever seek to take a legal challenge to give practical effect to this constitutional guarantee to mothers?
The late Mr Justice Brian Walsh expressed his surprise that this provision, which he described as a “constitutional social imperative”, had not been challenged in the courts, and pointed out that it “imposes an obligation on the State to do something in this particular area. There’s no point in relieving the State of an obligation which the Constitution imposes on it” (News, February 26th, 1993). – Yours, etc,
JILL NESBITT,
Bray,
Co Wicklow.