Referendum on Gender Equality

FOI documents from the Department of Justice about the definition of family. Long story short, they thought it would have major impacts on our immigration system

https://gript.ie/revealed-the-documents-the-state-didnt-want-you-to-see-before-the-referendums/

https://archive.ph/H7TaF (archive link)

"The process of overseeing the completion of the survey by the various divisions was handled by a
senior legal researcher from the Department’s Legal Services Support Unit. 

That researcher, in an email to senior officials in the Department, summarising the responses they had received, stated that:“the summary of all legal issues so far is that the amendments as currently worded will massively restrict the State’s ability to regulate its immigration system. It is not an exaggeration to say that it will be extremely difficult, and
perhaps impossible, to maintain a meaningful immigration system should the People accept these amendments.”

“The State has been able to maintain an immigration system so far precisely because Article 41 is applied to a small, tightly-defined group of people. The State will not be able to regulate immigration if this protection is applied any more widely.”

The researcher overseeing the survey also stated that “While I did not seek observations on non-legal issues, all units who have returned [the survey] so far have emphasised the extremely severe and extremely concerning effects of either/both of these amendments on their resources.” This was described as “noteworthy.”"

I wonder whether other media than Gript will pick this up. It's truly shocking that a site that is regularly castigated as being (allegedly) uninterested in truth and accuracy has broken a number of stories that the mainstream Irish media has - knowingly it would seem - ignored

The fact that a referendum was organised based on ministerial LIES to the public is surely one of massive public interest.

https://archive.ph/H7TaF

Gript initially applied for access to these documents in January of this year, but our initial FOI was refused. We received these documents following an appeal.

And yet even with the government and its institutions denying FOI, they could still not win the referendum. This is a massive story and mainstream media are not covering it. Because the fact that the mainstream media nodded along like donkeys to all of this is another massive story, or it should be.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

I didn't think I'd have to post about this again as it had been put to bed after the landslide vote against it, but that's not the case.

It looks like the government and "advocacy NGOs have definitely respected the democratic vote, and didn't go around asking the UN to stick it's oar in again.

Oh wait.

Ireland should hold another referendum on women in the home, UN committee says.

Don't you just love democracy? I mean err, living in a society where international obligations can be construed as a means to subvert democracy? Those of us that have been warning about the use of certain NGOs to subvert the democratic process have had precisely this kind of thing in mind.

Anyway isn't it amazing how both the government and some of these advocacy NGOs seem to be in lockstep?

Norma Foleys Department welcoming the report.

One of the biggest advocacy NGOs, the National Women's council, also in lockstep parroting the same line.

I looks like they are trying to have a Lisbon 2 and will come up with some spurious reason to try and rerun the referendum. Watch out for reports now about how misinformed people were, articles in the Irish Times etc backing this up, and all the RTE nodding heads doing the same. But don't worry, they know we didn't really mean it then, so we'll get a second chance to say sorry and put things right. after all it comes from the UN so it must be OK, we don't want them to think badly of us do we?

But I think they have seriously misjudged the mood of the country. People aren't as innocent as they were for Lisbon 2, there is a lot less trust of "Official Ireland" now than there was then. There is a lot more anger around in society now and the government and civil society, you know those with their snouts in the trough pontificating down to us peasants, are going to be in the firing line.

Also, people have seen how despite us getting opt outs on immigration and neutrality that we have had one thrown away and are seriously under pressure to join NATO. So any promises that they make to us will be seen to be worthless.

Just another thought, is this the reason for the sudden resurgence of a push for hate speech bill so they could stop discussion about this?

You read the whole article, and that’s all you took out of it? 🤨

The whole article, not behind a paywall:

https://archive.ph/VKIS2

Not that we want to p*ss away more taxpayer money on another un-necessary referendum, but I'm not sure if we can really call the result 100% conclusive.

As evidenced by this very thread and multiple discussions online, a lot of voters freely admitted that they wanted to give the Government a ''black eye'', so to speak. So there were quite a lot of protest votes as against any actual consideration/thoughts over the actual subjects at hand.
Would there perhaps have been a different result with a *happier electorate?

*not that the electorate can or will ever be truly happy

The votes in the 2 recent referendums were overwhelming and decisive. You can't really weasel out of this by banging on about what voters "really" wanted: what matters is how they actually voted.

Also it shows how arrogant some NGOs and UN representatives are whan they start demanding that we just vote again on an issue whare we apparently do not take the same "enlightened " views as them.

And for various reasons, there is little parallel with EU referendums.

”But it's not as if the current wording in the Constitution enjoys widespread support”- clearly according to the voters decision just last year they very much do support it.
I wasn’t an idiot that couldn’t read like Allison oConnor and Co liked to portray, there was no “confusion” (that’s why the result was so decisively No) and I didn’t want mothers removed from the constitution as in my opinion their place is special and should/must be protected. I’m not interested in more flowery language about “inclusivity and diversity” because quite frankly I’ve had my fill of it and don’t see society getting any better because of it

I dunno what was well said about it, because there’s no way to determine whether people do or don’t support the current wording, as that’s not what was being asked, in a referendum where less than half of registered voters turned out to vote. We were asked to vote on whether to replace the current wording with the proposed wording which would have done away with prescribing the role of women in society as working in the home, but would also have recognised not just the work of mothers, but also the work of carers, and the contribution they make to society without which the common good cannot be achieved.

There was nothing about whether or not a mothers place is special, and certainly successive Governments have done nothing to protect it, going so far at one stage as to cut maternity benefit, and lowering the income disregard for lone parents, with the intention that it would incentivise mothers to engage in labour outside of the home, while having no recognition whatsoever of their work within the home!

https://www.thejournal.ie/maternity-benefit-protest-1148394-Oct2013/

https://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/arid-20312087.html

However, because it was two referendums on the one day, the second one being the Family referendum, which sought to expand the definition of The Family as it is defined by marriage in the Irish Constitution, to recognise durable relationships, it would have extended the legal protections afforded to The Family, to unmarried parents and their children, the vast majority of which are unmarried mothers providing care for their children in the home who are currently not recognised in Irish law as constituting The Family.

Which is why road_high’s comments about the value they place on mothers working in the home as special, makes no sense whatsoever, until it is taken in conjunction with their statement about not being interested in more flowery language about “inclusivity and diversity” and they don’t see society getting any better because of it. The proposed amendments would have made circumstances better for unmarried mothers and their children, if Government hadn’t made such a hatchet job of the proposed wording, which is why it’s understandable that CEDAW would suggest that Government not give up on the issue -

In a report published on Monday, the UN’s Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) expressed disappointment with the failure of the referendum to pass and suggested the Government should not give up on the issue.“The committee recommends that the State party conduct an independent evaluation of the referendum, carry out information campaigns on the negative reinforcement by article 41.2 of gender stereotypes about women’s roles in the home and undertake inclusive public consultations to find alternative wording with a view to holding another constitutional referendum on amending article 41.2 of the Constitution to remove the stereotypical language on the role of women in the home,” it said.

As one of the many recommendations they made in relation to improving the position of women in Irish society -

The committee welcomes the progress made in a range of areas and a number of the pieces of legislation passed by the Oireachtas in recent years. These include legalisation intended to address issues around human trafficking, domestic violence, online harassment and gender pay gaps. However, the committee suggests there are more areas in which significant work needs to be done. It says what it describes as “arbitrary barriers” to redress for survivors of historic abuse in Mother and Baby Institutions should be removed. It also says access to legal services for women facing domestic violence or employment cases should be improved and backs reform of the primary education curriculum “to systematically incorporate gender equality and eliminate gender stereotypes”

https://archive.ph/VKIS2

That is CEDAWs purpose. It’s interesting however that the Irish Times sought only to draw attention to that one particular aspect of their recommendations, and the rest are only tangentially mentioned in the article. I’m cynical so I’m going to suggest it is because the Irish Times knows exactly who their audience is, and they know that outrage bait disguised in flowery language generates clicks which generates revenue, from people who say they’re not interested in flowery language about “inclusivity and diversity”.

What was the change expected to achieve in practical terms? What was the problem that needed to be fixed? The divorce referendum allowed divorce, the marriage equality referendum allowed same sex marriage etc.

You forgot one - the referendum on the 8th amendment fixed the problem of unmarried mothers claiming social welfare 🤨

(unless the idea is that Ireland suddenly gave a shìt about women’s rights where it didn’t before!)

Also removed an instance of ‘mother’ mentioned in the Constitution, but those people making claims about the value of mothers don’t appear to have taken any issue with the removal of the word in that context… it’s almost as if they know the ‘special recognition’ argument is bullshìt 🤔