As results from Ireland’s referendums began to trickle in, I cringed as I imagined the international headlines that would follow: “Ireland votes to keep women in the home” and “Referendums to modernise Irish constitution fail” were likely interpretations of the “no-no” vote.
This was the latest in a series of referendums that have seen Ireland progress into the 21st century. I’m sure the government felt that winning it would be easy, considering the success of the same-sex marriage and abortion referendums, which helped to earn Ireland a status as a beacon of liberal progressivism. But now I fear that, after Ireland’s recent flirtation with the far right, we’ll be seen as a backward country.
On Friday, International Women’s Day, Irish citizens took to the polls to vote in two referendums intended to modernise the country’s constitution, which has been in place since 1937. From the get-go, Ireland’s rightwing and conservative groups campaigned for no votes in both the family referendum and the care referendum.
For me and many others, a yes to the family referendum was a no-brainer: it proposed broadening the definition of a family beyond marriage to include those in “durable relationships”. But the care referendum was much more complex. The referendum proposed removing article 41.2, dubbed the “woman in the home” provision, and replacing it with wording that could see families saddled with the responsibility to provide care, while the state would “strive” to support them.
In its analysis of the amendments, the Free Legal Advice Centres (FLAC) worried that the wording of the proposed amendment was “ineffective” and was “unlikely to provide carers, people with disabilities or older people with any new enforceable rights or to require the state to provide improved childcare, personal assistance services, supports for independent-living, respite care or supports for children with disabilities”.
I resented the government for trading social inequalities, and replacing sexist language with ableist language. My identities as a woman and as a disabled person were in conflict.
My relationship with feminism has been a tumultuous one. As a disabled woman, my experience of inequality differs from that of my non-disabled peers. My younger brother and both I have the progressive neuromuscular condition Friedreich’s ataxia, so the concept of care plays a big role in our lives. His condition is much more advanced than mine, and he is 100% reliant on my parents and his nine hours of weekly government-funded care.
For able-bodied women, this referendum is about relieving an obligation to care – an obligation that women have been unfairly saddled with for centuries. But as a disabled woman, I need society to be more caring, not less. The failure of the yes campaign to even acknowledge this tension has been a great source of vexation for me over recent weeks. I felt that the rights of disabled people were being sacrificed by mainstream activists and NGOs who campaigned for a yes vote, ignoring the pleas of disabled people and carers.
I worry constantly about my ageing parents, who are already struggling to cope with the physically laborious task of caring. What will happen to my brother as my parents get older? Who will take care of them in their old age? And what about me? I despair when I think about a future in which my husband is forced to give up his job, rely on carer’s allowance and dedicate his life to my care. I want to live an independent life, which only state-provided care can offer me.
I felt the tide turning towards a no vote when an interview clip of Ireland’s taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, on Virgin Media One amassed huge popularity on social media. In the clip, Varadkar spoke about caring for his family members and said: “I don’t actually think that’s the state’s responsibility to be honest. I think it’s very much a family responsibility.” The outrage was immediately palpable online. Varadkar was eager to clarify his statement and claim that he had been misinterpreted, but the damage was done. The wording of the care referendum was perceived as yet another government failure over disability rights, the most recent of which was a “degrading and humiliating” proposal to reform welfare payments.
Voters had their different reasons for choosing “no-no” on Friday. For many, their vote was against the confusing wording of the text or the haphazard conduct of the yes campaign, or simply against a government that has failed to deliver on health, housing and education. Some feminists rejected the proposals because they didn’t go far enough – and yes, some people will have voted them down because they want to keep women in the home. But the decisive defeat of the care referendum wasn’t a win for Ireland’s far right. Anyone who suggests that is glossing over the admirable work of disabled people, carers and their allies who want to hold the state accountable.
The government would be making a grave mistake if it underestimates the political appetite for change and chalks the result up to conservative groups. Instead it must recognise the public desire for true equality and progress rather than tokenistic referendums that divide activists and NGOs. I would be very happy to revisit a care referendum with a different text in the future, under a different government that respects the autonomy of disabled people. That would guarantee a yes from me.
The failure of the referendum is a victory for Ireland’s disability community, and I am relieved that Ireland did not vote to abdicate the state’s responsibility to care for its citizens. But the archaic language that defines women’s role as in the home will continue to sit in our country’s constitution until a government is willing to deliver equality for all. We take no comfort in that.
Niamh Ní Hoireabhaird is a disability activist and journalist
