“If this public consultation is ignored as it doesn’t reflect what the government has decided to do…expect an exciting and popular grassroots ‘No’ campaign. Personally, I’m looking forward to it.”
Those are words from one of the hundreds of submissions to the Irish government’s public consultation on the Family and Care referendums, originally sent on May 19th 2023.
In this exclusive article, Gript will reveal how the Irish government decided to hold the Family and Care referendums at a cost of €21 million to the taxpayer, despite the fact that their own public consultation on the matter had already received an overwhelmingly negative response the year prior.
The vast majority of submissions to the consultation indicated that respondents didn’t want a referendum at all, and that the whole plan should be abandoned. Moreover, the Department of Equality delayed releasing this material to Gript for so long, that they breached the Freedom of Information Act 2014.
Between April and May 2023, a year before the Family and Care votes were held, an Inter-Departmental Committee chaired by Roderic O’Gorman’s Department of Equality invited members of the public to share their thoughts on the idea of a “gender equality” referendum.
An Inter-Departmental Committee, chaired by DCEDIY, has been established to bring forward policy proposals to Government on the planned Referendum on Gender Equality. The Committee is now inviting submissions from interested parties. Find out more here: https://t.co/lKgHbClm0t
— Children, Equality, Disability, Integration, Youth (@dcediy) April 26, 2023
Specifically, the Government urged any “interested parties” to respond to three proposed Constitutional changes: inserting a “gender equality and non-discrimination principle” into the Constitution; removing the so-called ‘women in the home’ reference and replacing it with “language that is not gender specific” to recognise “care”; and extending the definition of the “family” to one that is “not limited to the marital family”.
In response, the Department received 880 unique submissions from individual members of the public, and 22 submissions from organisations (many of which were State-funded NGOs).
Gript exhaustively analysed each and every submission the Government received. Here’s what those responses said:
Of the individual responses received, 92.7% were negative towards the idea of such a referendum, with just 0.7% being positive (there were six positive submissions in total).
1.1% were “Mixed” (i.e. the person was open to one of the proposed amendments, but not the other), and 8.6% were “Unclear”, where the submission was either blank, or phrased in a way that made it difficult to understand the author’s exact position.
Meanwhile, the Government received 21 submissions from organisations, of which 14 (66.7%) were positive. Many of these were NGOs or State agencies, such as LGBT Ireland, FLAC, INAR, The Traveller Equality and Justice Project, The Citizens Information Board, and more.
While these groups firmly supported the idea of changing the Constitution along gender equality lines, many expressed concerns with the practical way the referendum was being approached, and urged alternative wording or rephrasing of the proposed amendments.
In addition to those, 6 organisations (28.6%) gave negative submissions, such as the feminist activist group The Countess, the Irish Freedom Party, Women’s Space Ireland, and others – all of whom said the referendum should not go ahead.
Aside from those, one group submission was “Mixed”, and one was “Unclear” (representing 4.8% each).
Of the total individual submissions received, 72.5% outright stated that they did not want a referendum to take place at all:
“Please be advised I do not want a referendum on gender equality.”
“I would not like to see further amendments being made to the Constitution.”
“I feel the referendum should not go ahead.”
“I wish to confirm my objection to the holding of any referendum on the above.”
“I find that there is no reason to hold this referendum and it should be scrapped.”
“Regardless of what your NGOs will tell you, I and most people I know don’t want any referendum to take place at all, and the whole plan should be scrapped.”
Many of these respondents argued that the proposed changes were simply not necessary, because the Constitution’s existing stance on equality was already perfectly adequate:
“Article 40 of the Constitution states ‘All citizens shall, as human persons, be held equal before the law.’ This is a simple, clear and unambiguous statement. The Constitution already protects all citizens equally.”
“I would suggest that a referendum on gender equality is completely unnecessary as equality is enshrined in the constitution already. No need to fix something that is not broken.”
“The constitution is perfectly adequate and correct on this issue already, and does not need to be changed in any way to ensure ‘gender equality.’ Discrimination on the basis of sex, man or women, is already illegal in Ireland, and has been for decades.”
“I don’t want [a referendum] thanks very much, I think the document more than provides the cover needed.”
“I am opposed to such a referendum as both sexes are protected under law equally already.”
Many individuals also asserted or implied that the government is taking too much advice from NGOs:
“[There is] a high degree of capture by government‐funded NGOs, whose activism and lobbying objectives are simply not representative of the views of the broader Irish population. A referendum or referendums on the three items above would undoubtedly be defeated.”
“Please focus on the real issues in this country that all of our citizens expect you to make an impact on – particularly housing, education and health. Please stop wasting time centering the priorities of unelected, unmandated NGOs that do not reflect the priorities of the majority of citizens on this island.”
“This referendum is, at best, pointless and stupidly thought out, and at worst it’s a subversion of power that deliberately ignores the vast majority of Irish citizens in favour of NGOs and other vested private interests…Stop diverting time and energy to this circus sideshow.”
Moreover, the proposal to remove the so-called “woman in the home” provision or the word “mother” from the Constitution was met with considerable backlash, and came up as a point of contention in one third (33.4%) of the total submissions:
“I do not think that any referendum should take place…I am a woman, a mother a wife and a sister. I breastfed, I gave birth to three children two boys and one girl. One day I intend to be a grandmother. My place is in the home rearing my children. Your place as the state is to keep your nose out of it.”
“I am a stay at home mother and I don’t want the constitution changed to omit the word ‘mother’. It is not backward, it’s very protective of mothers and it does represent me…Every person in this citizenship is equal already under the constitution. Please stop wasting tax payers money on unnecessary referendums.”
“I am ‘a woman in the home’ and have relied on this protection while caring for my child who has autism. I am fully committed to equality of the sexes, but my lived experience as a woman (female sex) is that the impact of caring for children is far more significant for me than for his father…Erasing this protection sets women’s democratic rights backwards, something we can’t conscience in this country.”
“We have enough legislation without defacing our Constitution. In fact, I like the reference to women in the constitution as it stands. I’d love to be able to stay at home and mind my family, but unfortunately am forced to work as it is no longer affordable to do so in this country!”
A third of respondents (32.5%) also brought up concerns around the issue of transgenderism and the impact of gender ideology on women’s rights, arguing that a “gender neutral” provision regarding care within the Constitution would be a further erosion of women’s place in society.
Some cited the Citizens’ Assembly on Gender Equality, which had originally called for the referendum of gender equality, and which said in its report to the Oireachtas:
Some respondents questioned whether a referendum on “gender equality” was, in fact, a Trojan horse to sneak gender identity politics into the Constitution by the backdoor:
“What is in mind in relation to the gender equality referendum[?] Is the intention to include something in respect of gender identity?”
“I am strongly against the proposed amendments to our Constitution as it is a further attack on the biological sex‐based rights of women and will enshrine gender identity ideology within our Constitution.”
“This attempt to change the constitution by forcing in references to gender ideology and to erase references to women’s unpaid work in the home is shameful.”
More than 1 in 10 submissions (11.1%) also cautioned the government against the referendum on the basis that it would be a frivolous waste of taxpayer’s money:
“Do not waste taxpayers money on utterly ridiculous nonsense that nobody wants.”
“I don’t want any referendum to take place and the whole thing should be cancelled. A waste of taxpayers time and money!! Virtue signalling at its finest!”
“It would be a gross waste of taxpayer monies to hold a referendum on this issue at all.”
“For the record I want no referendum on this divisive nonsense. It’s a pathetic, expensive distraction from actual issues the country faces.”
“I can see no benefit in holding a referendum on this. It is a waste of taxpayers money. The money could be better spent on housing or health care.”
“It’ll cost the taxpayer a fortune for what exactly? Some meaningless words[?] I would not like any referendum, and [I’d have] the ‘Citizens Assembly’ disbanded if given the choice.”
“I don’t want any referendum to take place, it’s a huge waste of taxpayers money in the time of the [cost of] living crisis.”
The referendums ultimately went on to cost taxpayers €21 million euro, and were defeated by the highest and third-highest percentage ‘No’ votes in the history of the Irish State.
In addition, 10.8% of submissions complained about the consultation process itself, with many saying that they had only managed to respond right before the consultation closed because they hadn’t heard about it until the eleventh hour:
“It would be great if the public were actually informed about this ‘Public Consultation’. How can the government conduct a public consultation that virtually the entire public are unaware of?”
“It is disappointing to hear only today that this consultation is in progress. There are many women’s groups in the country yet none of my friends/colleagues were aware of this consultation. It would seem the advertising of it could have been more robust.”
“Strongly object to this public consultation not being made public.”
“I want to highlight and object to the way this ‘Public Consultation’ was published and hidden from the public. You have not advertised it anywhere…I consider your approach to be underhanded, dishonest, and falling far short of the standards I expect as a taxpayer from public servants.”
“It would be nice if you announced on the media…at least a month prior to deadlines for such submissions…This has become your tactic in recent years: only let the people know at the last minute. Remove proper dialogue and you remove any chance for proper, informed consent and proper consideration. It’s getting old.”
“As a citizen of this country I am totally disgusted to learn just today about a public consultation on Gender Equality going before government tomorrow. I, as a member of the public, have not been asked to engage in this process have not been made aware of this.”
“You deliberately obscured the fact that this public consultation period was open to the public in order to reduce the number of submissions and manufacture consent. This is completely anti‐democratic. But you knew that already. You must immediately extend the consultation period. How dare you disrespect the electorate in this manner.”
Many also referred to comments around the same time by then-Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, who defended his government’s decision to ignore the results of their own public consultation on the Hate Speech Bill.
Notably, 73% of respondents said they did not want the legislation, but Varadkar’s government decided to proceed with it anyway on the basis that these responses were not “reflective of public opinion.”
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar defends disregarding the results of the public consultation on "hate speech" laws, arguing that "very often" such consultations are hijacked by "campaigning groups" and are not "reflective of public opinion."#gript pic.twitter.com/X6EC0uF6NO
— gript (@griptmedia) May 4, 2023
Numerous respondents to the Family and Care consultation made reference to these remarks by Varadkar, with one going so far as to call it a “disgraceful slap in the face to the Irish people”:
“Given that Taoiseach Leo Varadkar TD dismissed the multitude of public submissions in relation to the “Hate Crime / Curtailment of Free Speech” bill recently, is it not hypocritical to undertake this public consultation? Or is it that an Taoiseach will only accept public consultations where they affirm the agenda which he is pushing?”
“Firstly, as was revealed by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, we know that this consultation process is merely for some kind of show. You will dismiss the results and vilify anyone or any group that makes a submission that is not in favour of your preferred result.”
“Following Leo Varadkar’s recent comments on his, and the government’s, attitude to public consultations I hope that his disgraceful slap in the face to the Irish people will spur even more of the public to get involved in these consultations, even in the knowledge that they will be ignored.”
“Despite Leo Varadkar making it clear that the government pays no attention to public opinion, I am hoping against hope that someone there still has a sense of what democracy entails.”
“Leo Varadkar proved he didn’t care about the 73 percent of people who didn’t want hate speech law. The majority don’t want these referendums…”
“Despite the fact the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and members of the government only see submissions such as this as an exercise in pretending to consult the public, I will take my time to submit the following…”
The Department of Equality also appears to have delayed releasing the submissions to Gript for so long that they breached the Freedom of Information Act 2014 in the process.
On April 12th 2024, Gript submitted a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the Department of Equality seeking all submissions received during the public consultation.
On May 9th 2024, a reply was received saying that the request was rejected on the basis that “Submissions made from individuals are undergoing a redaction process and will be published in the coming weeks.” The Department specifically cited Section 15(f) of the Freedom of Information Act 2014, which states that a request can be rejected if “the FOI body intends to publish the record and such publication is intended to be effected not later than 6 weeks after the receipt of the request by the head”.
Despite Gript emailing the Department and repeatedly requesting the material for months, they took 12 weeks to release the material after their response email – dramatically more time than they were permitted to take under FOI legislation.
Gript asked the Department if they accepted that they had breached FOI rules, but received no reply.