In theory, a referendum is an excellent idea. What could be more democratic than direct consultation of the voters in order to amend our fundamental statement of national values, the Constitution?
So why do so many of them turn out to be little other than expensive symbolic social signalling?
The 36th Amendment, or the abortion referendum, is one significant exception. From the beginning, resources were marshalled and structures were put into place to support the aspirations now enshrined in the Constitution.
For me, it is a tragedy that one of the most effective implementations to date of the will of the voters involves the taking of human life. Nonetheless, it is a perfect example of what can be done when the political will is there. In the first six months of this year, according to HSE figures, the total cost of providing medical abortion was €2,439,600, in comparison with €2,652,000 for the whole of 2019, the first time that abortion figures were published. In 2022 alone, the total amount spent on abortion pills was €887,657. In all, when you include capital expenditures, more than €25 million has been spent since 2019.
[ How the Yes and No sides won and lost the abortion referendumOpens in new window ]
The teenage son of a woman I know has a serious eye condition that can cause blindness and reduces him to tears from pain. The family have had to find more than €5,000 for treatment themselves. The mother said to me that millions can be found for abortion, but nothing for a boy weeping in agony.
It’s a slur commonly cast at pro-lifers that they only care about children until birth and couldn’t care less after. There appears to be more evidence that Irish society in general does not care too much for children after birth. Just compare the results and outcomes of the children’s rights referendum and the abortion referendum.
The 2012 children’s rights referendum was brought forward by people with the best of intentions but a watered-down version received a lukewarm reception. What did it achieve? What lawyer Keith Walsh once described as Rolls Royce promises and Honda 50 funding still pertains.
In recent times, we have had the Child Law Project publish a letter by Mr Justice Dermot Simms, now retired but at the time still on the bench, expressing “utmost concern for the immediate predicament and welfare of children . . . in the care of the State”.
Bizarrely, Minister for Children Roderic O’Gorman has deleted three out of four reports sent to him by Mr Justice Simms, citing GDPR concerns, according to a response to a parliamentary question by Peadar Tóibín TD.
In another letter, this time to the HSE, Children’s Ombudsman Niall Muldoon, described ongoing “profound violation[s] of children’s rights” in the areas of mental health and disability care. He spoke of parents who “deeply love and care for their children but feel they have no choice but to leave them behind in emergency departments, respite centres and schools simply because they cannot cope”.
Let us not start on homelessness and children. The Peter McVerry Trust tells us that 3,829 children accessed emergency accommodation as of July 2023 and reminds us that figure does not include people couch surfing, in domestic violence refuges and in direct provision centres. Whatever about adults, one would think the homelessness of children would spur action.
There has been a great deal of debate about a right-to-housing referendum, with some such as Michael McDowell claiming that it would not lay a single brick and Sinn Féin spokesman on housing Eoin O’Broin citing the Mercy Law Resource Centre claim that it would “put in place a basic floor of protection”.
But if years of frustrated hopes for a home with all the subsequent negative effects on our society have not moved politicians to act effectively on housing, will a referendum?
As for the women in the home referendum, the current constitutional clause is a dead letter that has provided no protection for women seeking to work in the home. Replacing it with a gender-neutral formulation is likely to be just as useless. What is needed is a cultural revolution that creates a norm where a family can live on a single income. Our entire economy is predicated on all adults working outside the home and high consumption levels. It is bad for families and it is bad for the environment.
Such a radical cultural change would require high levels of income re-distribution and a decent housing policy but would benefit everyone.
Lone parents would lose nothing because they could have a decent life on a single income instead of heading every poverty statistic. (Of course, education would be a key part of ensuring people could access the workforce.) Two-parent families could distribute the work in a way that best suited them, either one parent staying at home full-time, or both sharing the responsibilities.
The last thing that is needed is a piously aspirational proposal that changes not a single thing because it carries no cultural, political or administrative weight. It would just mirror the removal of blasphemy from the Constitution which achieved nothing except to make people feel smug about no longer being shackled by medieval laws which never shackled them in the first place.