The Citizens’ Assembly has voted for radical change [1] to the Constitution’s special protection for marriage.
99% of the members voted to affirm the proposition that the Constitution “protect private and family life, including forms of family life beyond the marital family”.
It was not specified how that would be done. Marriage currently enjoys special status compared with other families in recognition of its importance to children, but critics says it discriminates against other families even after the passage of same-sex marriage in 2015.
Currently, a whole section of Article 41 [2] is dedicated to recognising and protecting the family without specifying any limits to how the institution is understood.
A separate section of the same article recognises and protects marriage, noting it as the institution “on which the Family is founded”.
The Assembly also voted to delete the clause that protects mothers from being forced to work outside the home.
It was proposed that it be replaced with a clause that would be genderless, and, instead of recognising the work of a mother in the upbringing of children, would be more general in recognising the work of carers, and not just in the home, but in the community also.