The results of this Friday’s referendums on family and care are “in the balance” and good turnout is “really important”, according to Taoiseach Leo Varadkar.
The Fine Gael leader made the remarks after a canvass for the ‘Yes-Yes’ side in Ranelagh on Dublin’s southside.
In next Friday’s referendums, the Government proposes – in two votes – expanding the definition of family in the Constitution to recognise “durable relationships”, such as cohabiting couples and their children, and replacing the language around women’s “duties in the home” with language recognising care within families.
Mr Varadkar said: “I’m certainly not taking the results of the referendum for granted. I do think it’s in the balance.
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“A lot of people are really getting around to thinking about how they’re voting now.
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“I’m appealing for a good turnout.
“Decisions are made by those who turn up and it’s really important that we have a good turnout.”
He said it is a referendum “that does matter” adding: “If there’s a No vote on Saturday morning, hundreds of thousands of children in Ireland will wake up to hear that Irish society has decided that their family isn’t a constitutional family, isn’t an equal family just because the parents aren’t married; and that’s not right.
“If there’s a Yes vote we’ll be saying as a society that all families are equal and that the marital status of their parents shouldn’t affect that.”
He said if there is a No vote in the care referendum “we will have very outdated language in our Constitution that will be there for the foreseeable future and we’ll be deciding not to recognise family care in our Constitution and I think that would be really unfortunate”.
Some on the No side have criticised the new language on care is not going far enough. It was put to Mr Varadkar that some campaign groups for people with disabilities are concerned that the wording of the care referendum is focused on care within families and that the State has previously fallen short on obligations to support care.
Mr Varadkar said the referendum is “about recognising the role and importance of family carers in our constitution for the first time and putting an obligation on the state to strive to support that care. That’s what it’s about.”
“It’s also about deleting some very old-fashioned, very sexist language about women.
“That’s why I’m encouraging people to vote Yes on that.”
[ Referendums explainer: Yes votes will not create immediately obvious rightsOpens in new window ]
[ March 8th referendums: The debates, theories, spats and mansplaining summarisedOpens in new window ]
He said organisations like as Family Carers Ireland and the National Women’s Council support a Yes vote.
Mr Varadkar added: “I appreciate that there are some people making the argument that if there’s a No vote, that a future government can come back with different wording at a different time.
“There’s no guarantee that a future government will rerun the referendum, no guarantee that they’ll come up with wording that’s more acceptable to more people, no guarantee that that referendum would even pass.
“The only guarantee is that if there’s a No vote, the sexist language about women in our Constitution will be reaffirmed and the Irish people will have voted not to recognise the special position of family care in the Constitution.
“And I think that would be a retrograde step.”
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