ICAatcentreof referendumrow

November 1994

A row has broken out in south Wicklow over the ICA holding an information meeting on the divorce referendum.

But the women’s organisation rejected any suggestion that they are pro-divorce after they invited law reform Minister Mervyn Taylor to address members in the Woodenbridge Hotel.

The accusation that the ICA meeting was a pro-divorce one has come from the Anti-Divorce Campaign who pointed out that Mr Taylor was the only speaker, and he was there promoting a yes vote.

And the Anti-Divorce Campaign has now called on the ICA to organise an anti-divorce seminar to redress the injustice done.

‘In the middle of a campaign, we feel it is incomprehensible that there wasn’t an anti divorce speaker on the platform to provide a balanced debate,’ they said in a statement.

‘It is particularly puzzling for the ICA to be organising this as the last time their members were polled they were against divorce, and even at the meeting it was admitted that they had no mandate on this issue.’

But ICA national president Bridin Twist stressed that they were neither for nor against divorce; they were an educational body. This meeting was about bringing information to members who at the end of the day would be making their own decisions on how to vote.

Federation president Statia Ivers, who chaired Saturday’s meeting, reiterated that they were not on one side or the other in the divorce debate. She described the information meeting as having been quite useful and her one disappointment was with the small turnout of ICA members for the meeting.

But the Anti-Divorce Campaign said it was also baffling that the National Women’s council to which the ICA is affiliated, has come out in favour of divorce, without any apparent objection from the ICA. Mr Taylor said he had attended a lot of ICA meetings around the country at the formative stage of the legislation and there was something of the ICA comments in the wording, particularly the reassurance that this strict form of divorce would be put into the constitution so that it could not be changed without reference to the people again.

He said the anti-divorce group seemed to be chopping and changing their arguments all the time and the question of property division was a scare tactic being used by them.

There would be no change and the property provisions already there under the judicial separation act would continue on.

He said that the divorce referendum was an attempt to recognise what had already happened to people who were unfortunately separated and to give them a second chance in life. There would be no compulsion on anyone to get a divorce, but it would be an option if they wished to avail of it.

Meanwhile, Arklow’s parish priest, Fr Colm Gallagher, in his monthly newsletter, is calling on people to vote ‘No’ in the referendum. He believes that divorce will further de-stabilise marriage and family life in society and, unfortunately, if something becomes ‘ legal’ it will become acceptable to all and undermine the permanency of marriage.