Referendum on wording of constitution postponed until February at the earliest

The Taoiseach admitted that he is “very conscious” of comments made by the chief executive of the Electoral Commission, Art O’Leary who warned that a “proper information campaign” of up to 16 weeks is needed ahead of any referendum. Picture: Leah Farrell/RollingNews.ie

A referendum on women in the home is set to be delayed until February at the earliest, the Taoiseach has indicated.

Leo Varadkar has raised fears around disinformation ahead of the vote and said he wants to provide the Electoral Commission with as much time as it needs to run a full information campaign.

Mr Varadkar previously announced that a vote to remove ‘sexist’ references to women would take place in November, however, this deadline is now seen as unrealistic.

The Taoiseach has said that he will have the wording of two votes — one to address women in the home and the other to remove the reference to family being based on marriage — ready for sign-off in the coming weeks.

However, he admitted that he is “very conscious” of comments made by the chief executive of the Electoral Commission, Art O’Leary who warned that a “proper information campaign” of up to 16 weeks is needed ahead of any referendum.

“It’s the first time that they’ll be running a referendum, they don’t just have the role of running the referendum itself in terms of ballot boxes and ballot papers, they also have the role of running the information campaign. I’ve heard him [Mr O’Leary] say in interviews that he would need maybe three or four months lead-in time to get that right.”

Mr Varadkar now plans to meet Mr O’Leary in the coming weeks to discuss the timing of the vote.

In an interview with the Irish Examiner in New York, Mr Varadkar said: “If the Electoral Commission is taking the view that they would need three to four months lead in time, I think we’d have to take that into consideration.

“That’s why I want to sit down with with Electoral Commission and figure that out, because I’ve been involved in a lot of referendum campaigns, some transformational ones, most of which we’ve won, some of which we lost or nearly lost, and they’re often lost or nearly lost by accident because of misinformation or disinformation or extraneous issues coming into play. I think it’s important that we don’t allow that to happen.”

The wording of the Constitutional changes is currently being considered by ministers and party leaders, but Mr Varadkar said there will be two questions posted.

The first will delete the “very old-fashioned language” about women’s duties being in the home, replacing it with a “recognition of the value of care”; while the second will relate to family being based on marriage.

I think everyone in Ireland now accepts and understands that there are families that are not based on marriage, whether they’re lone-parent families, or whether their family is led by a guardian or grandparent.

“The Constitution protects family and will continue to do so as the basic unit of our society. The Constitution also protects the institution of marriage, which, as somebody who fought for marriage equality and campaigned for it, is something that I think is really important too.

“But what the Constitution currently says is that families have to be based on marriage. So what we’ll try and do is update that to recognise the fact that there are lots of families in Ireland that aren’t based on marriage.”

The risk, of course, which will be misinformation, is people trying to make out that we’re removing the protection of family from the Constitution or removing the protection of marriage from the Constitution but that’s categorically not the case.

Separately, Green Party leader Eamon Ryan has hit out at British prime minister Rishi Sunak for not attending the UN this week as world leaders discuss the climate crisis.

Mr Sunak instead announced changes to Britain’s plans for tackling climate change, including a delay to the timeframe for banning sales of new petrol cars.

Mr Ryan, who yesterday addressed the UN Security Council, said: “The UK has one of the proudest records in climate diplomacy and climate action, they’ve actually significantly reduced their emissions in the last 10 or 15 years.

“But their absence is worrying. I would worry for the British people that if they, the british government, were to leave that track.”

Mr Ryan added: “They’re starting to be seen as a country which is not leading in climate, and that’s not good for their people. It’s not good for their economy, it’s not good for their reputation.”