A Rural Independent TD has said that referendum anger will linger within the farming community because of the push to have “durable relationships” inserted into the Constitution, with possible impacts on succession, inheritance and marriage law.
The Laois Offaly TD Carol Nolan has said that she is in no doubt that “one of the major outcomes of government’s overwhelmingly defeated constitutional amendments referenda will be a lingering anger within the farming community at having utterly avoidable levels of anxiety stoked by vague and indefinite language on durable relationships.”
Deputy Nolan was speaking as the political fallout from the humiliating defeat on both government amendments continues to deepen:
“Prior to the vote a number of national farming organisations expressed real fear and alarm particularly with respect to the government’s intention to insert ‘durable relationships’ into the constitution and the impact this would have on succession, inheritance and marriage law. We now know that this prudent caution has been completely vindicated following the publication of the Attorney General’s advice and indeed the vote itself,” said Deputy Nolan.
“Farmers, like everyone else, needed clarity and firm legal guarantees when it came to major issues of this nature. What they got instead was a flood of warm, woke words with no legal or constitutional reality to back them up.”
“My feeling from talking to farmers and rural people is that they will be slow to forgive or forget the anxiety and the worry that government put them through for absolutely no other reason than to use the constitution in an attempt to bolster its own plummeting popularity.”
“Government may have hoped that it did not have an alienated rural Ireland on their hands prior to the vote. Now, they can be absolutely certain of it,” concluded Deputy Nolan.
Both referenda on women at home and the family were defeated by a landslide vote on March 8th.