The nation’s special homemakers deserve constitutional protection

A WELCOME recognition of women’s work in the home or a misogynist attempt to keep women out of the workplace?

Views differ about Article 41.2 of the Constitution which states that “by her life within the home, the woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved” and adds that the State will protect such women from being forced out to work by “economic necessity”.

There are half a million women working in the home in Ireland, as well as about 9,000 men. You would have thought that there would be a lot of interest in the fact that the constitutional convention convened by the Government is debating this clause this weekend. But hardly any of these women and men even know it’s going on. The convention didn’t advertise this call for submissions in the newspapers as they did that on the voting age and the presidential term because of the cost involved.