‘Ignore red herrings and vote Yes’
LEO Varadkar has warned there will be attempts made to use upcoming referendums on the rights of families as ‘red herrings’ to mislead voters.
The first plebiscite on March 8 is on whether the Constitution should be changed to extend the definition of family beyond only those based on marriage to include ‘durable’ relationships.
The second is on whether to delete a reference to the role and duties of women in the home and replace it with a new article placing an obligation on the State ‘to strive to support’ the provision of care by families.
Launching Fine Gael’s campaign in support of a Yes vote for both changes yesterday, Mr Varadkar said: ‘There are going to be people who try to make the referendum about something that it is not actually about.’
Anti-migrant groups have said the proposed changes redefining the rights for family could lead to higher immigration due to increased reunification of asylum seekers’ spouses and relatives.
But Mr Varadkar said immigration law already provided for reunification and added that State law allowed for circumstances where non-national spouses of Irish citizens could be deported.
The Taoiseach told the launch event that one million people would benefit from a ‘protective shield’ of the recognition of their family through the proposed changes to the Constitution.
On the referendum about care, Mr Varadkar said the wording would place an obligation on the State to ‘strive’ to support families providing care.
He said this meant the State would have to ‘work vigorously’ to improve things for family carers.
Asked why the Government had chosen to add the word ‘strive’ rather than proposed a constitutional change to impose an obligation to directly support the provision of care, Mr Varadkar said there was a need to be careful that the wording was not ‘too strong’.
He said: ‘If you put in language that is obligatory, for example, it takes decisions away from the Oireachtas... Any time we’re making a budget, we have to make difficult choices. And take, for example, social welfare – we’ve to make choices between pensioners and sometimes between carers and sometimes between people that have a lone-parent family and other groups.
‘Those are choices that should be made, in our view, by the Oireachtas and the elected members of the people.’
Mr Varadkar added of the wording: ‘This does put an additional obligation on the State to strive to support family carers but it doesn’t make it so strong that it might be at the expense of other groups that aren’t listed.’