The government of Ireland held two referendums on 8 March 2024 on proposed amendments to the Constitution of Ireland. The Thirty-ninth Amendment of the Constitution (The Family) Bill 2023 proposed to expand the constitutional definition of family to include durable relationships outside marriage. The Fortieth Amendment of the Constitution (Care) Bill 2023 proposed to replace a reference to women's "life within the home" and a constitutional obligation to "endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home" with a gender-neutral article on supporting care within the family.
Of the parties represented in the Dáil, the governing coalition partners Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, and the Green Party called for Yes votes in both referendums, as did opposition parties Sinn Féin, the Labour Party, the Social Democrats, and People Before Profit–Solidarity. Opposition parties Aontú and Independent Ireland called for No votes in both. Civil society groups including the National Women's Council of Ireland, Treoir, Family Carers Ireland, One Family, and the Union of Students in Ireland advocated Yes votes in both referendums, as did Mary McAleese, a former president of Ireland. Groups including the Iona Institute, Family Solidarity, and Lawyers for No—an ad hoc group of barristers led by Senator Michael McDowell—campaigned for No votes in both. Opinion polls taken between early February and early March suggested a significant lead for the Yes campaign in both referendums.
Turnout nationwide was 44.36 percent of registered voters. Contradicting the opinion polls, voters comprehensively rejected both bills, with 67.69 percent voting No to the proposed Thirty-ninth Amendment on the Family and 73.93 percent voting No to the proposed Fortieth Amendment on Care. These were the highest and third-highest percentage votes for No in the history of Irish constitutional referendums. Of the 39 constituencies, only Dún Laoghaire supported the proposed Thirty-ninth Amendment, and none supported the proposed Fortieth. The Donegal constituency registered the highest percentage votes for No in both referendums, at 80.21 and 83.97 percent respectively.
Background
The Constitution of Ireland came into force on 29 December 1937, following a statewide plebiscite held on 1 July 1937. An amendment to the Constitution of Ireland must be proposed as a bill initiated in Dáil Éireann and be passed, or deemed to have been passed, in both the Dáil and Seanad Éireann. The bill must then be submitted to a referendum in which all Irish citizens on the electoral register are eligible to vote.
In July 2018, Minister for Justice and Equality Charlie Flanagan announced the intention of the government to hold a referendum deleting Article 41.2 from the Constitution. This was to be held on the same day as the 2018 presidential election and a referendum to remove the offence of blasphemy. However, a decision of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice and Equality to schedule pre-legislative hearings meant there was insufficient time to prepare a bill for the proposed October 2018 date.
In July 2019, the Oireachtas established a Citizens' Assembly on gender equality. It delivered a report in June 2021. An Oireachtas Committee on Gender Equality was established in December 2021 to consider the report of the assembly. It delivered a report in December 2022, in which it proposed changes to the constitution, including to Article 40.1 on equality and Article 41 on the Family.
On 8 March 2023, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar marked International Women's Day by announcing the government's intention to hold a referendum in November 2023 to enshrine gender equality in the Constitution by amending Articles 40 and 41.
Proposals for constitutional amendments were due to be published by the end of June with a referendum to follow in November. In August 2023, official and political sources told The Irish Times that the referendum was unlikely to take place in November, as planned. Scrutiny of the term "family" by senior officials drafting the text of the amendment had raised thorny questions about its definition and about related gender issues, provoking official caution likely to create delay. The following week, in September, Taoiseach Varadkar announced that the government had decided to hold two referendums on the issue, in the "lifetime of the Government". He said the wordings of the amendments had not yet been finalised.
On 5 December 2023, Varadkar and the Tánaiste, Micheál Martin, confirmed the topics of the two referendums proposed to be held on 8 March 2024. Gender equality was not included in the proposals, to avoid the placing of gender discrimination above other types of discrimination.
Wording
The bills were presented to the Dáil by Roderic O'Gorman, the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, on 8 December 2023. Both bills were passed by the Dáil on 17 January 2024. They were passed by the Seanad on 23 January.
The Family
The Thirty-Ninth Amendment of the Constitution (The Family) Bill 2023 (bill no. 91 of 2023) proposed to amend Article 41.1.1° to insert the words "whether founded on marriage or on other durable relationships". It also proposed the deletion of the words "on which the Family is founded" from Article 41.3.1°.
Care
The Fortieth Amendment of the Constitution (Care) Bill 2023 (bill no. 92 of 2023) proposed to delete Article 41.2 from the Constitution and to insert a new Article 42B. It would also renumber Articles 41.3 and 41.4 as 41.2 and 41.3 respectively.
Campaign
On 24 January, the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage Darragh O'Brien signed an order setting the polling day for both referendums as 8 March, to take place between the hours of 7 a.m. and 10 p.m.
On 25 January, the Electoral Commission launched an information campaign to explain the proposed amendments and promote participation. This was the first time it performed the function, which was previously the responsibility of a Referendum Commission established for each referendum.
The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage estimated the cost of the campaign as between €16 million to €17 million.
Political parties
Both amendments were supported by the government parties of Fianna Fáil (with Thomas Byrne as director of elections), Fine Gael (with Heather Humphreys as director of elections), and the Green Party (with Pauline O'Reilly as director of elections). Among the opposition parties, they were supported by the Labour Party, the Social Democrats and People Before Profit. Sinn Féin was due to decide on the issue at a meeting of their Ard Comhairle on 3 February 2024 and eventually decided on 12 February to support both referendums "despite considerable disappointment with how the government has handled the upcoming proposals for constitutional change". On 20 February 2024 Mary Lou McDonald said that Sinn Féin would re-run the Care referendum, with a revised wording, if it is rejected and if Sinn Féin were in government.
Two parties represented in the Dáil, Aontú and Independent Ireland, opposed both amendments. Senator Sharon Keogan erected posters advocating a No vote in both referendums, using money raised from a GoFundMe page. One of the posters which read "Don't force mothers out to work...Vote No." was described by the Electoral Commission as "an incorrect representation" of the question people are being asked to vote on. Senator Rónán Mullen and party leader of the Human Dignity Alliance also called for No vote on both amendments.
On 4 March 2024, An Rabharta Glas supported a Yes vote for the Family amendment and a No vote for the Care amendment, describing the latter as a "cynical window-dressing exercise which actually abdicates state responsibility for care and erodes the status of people with disabilities and carers". The Communist Party of Ireland also supported a Yes vote for the Family amendment and a No vote for the Care amendment. The Irish Freedom Party, the National Party, Ireland First, the Centre Party of Ireland, the Farmers' Alliance, The Irish People and Liberty Republic opposed both amendments. It was reported that the Christian Solidarity Party also opposed both; however this party is not on the Register of Political Parties anymore.
The Electoral Commission granted Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin, the Green Party and Ireland First status as approved bodies for the referendum campaign.
Civil society groups
The amendments were supported by civil society groups including the National Women's Council of Ireland, Treoir, Family Carers Ireland, One Family, Union of Students in Ireland, and Spark. Mary McAleese, a former president of Ireland, and Sinéad Gibney, who had resigned the previous day as the chief commissioner of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, addressed an event hosted by Treoir and One Family to call for Yes votes in both referendums. The Law Society of Ireland supported a Yes vote in both referendums. This caused disagreement among some solicitors.
Both amendments were opposed by the Iona Institute, Family Solidarity, and the Irish Women's Lobby. Lawyers for No, an ad hoc group including Michael McDowell, Michael McNamara, Brenda Power and Maria Steen, stated their opposition on 29 February. McDowell argued that a person could seek to resist deportation on the grounds of a durable relationship if the Family amendment was approved. The Lawyers for No group also claimed that extending the constitutional definition of family to include durable relationships would have "long-term consequences for family law, family property rights, succession law, pension law, tax law, welfare law, and migration and residence law." A march held in Dublin on 3 February 2024 calling for a No vote in both referendums was attended by around 100 people including Senator Sharon Keogan.
The Free Legal Advice Centres (FLAC) supported the Family amendment but did not support the Care amendment, which they described as "implicitly sexist" and "ineffective". Both Independent Living Movement Ireland and the Irish Council for Civil Liberties criticised the wording of the Care amendment but neither organisation campaigned against it. A group of disability campaigners, Equality Not Care, called for a No vote on the care referendum. Trinity College Dublin Students' Union endorsed a Yes vote in the Family referendum and a No vote in the Care referendum.
Religious groups
The Catholic Bishops' Conference said it would not be issuing any public comment until their Spring General Meeting which takes place in the days running up to the vote, however a statement was read out at mass on 25 February 2024 calling for a No vote in both referendums, arguing that Yes votes would weaken the incentive to marry and remove motherhood from the Constitution. Denis Nulty, Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin had expressed concerns about the changes. The Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Dermot Farrell said that "there will continue to be a moral obligation on governments and public policy to protect the institution of marriage and support vulnerable people and their families regardless of the outcome" and urged people to take part in the democratic process.
The Presbyterian Church in Ireland released a statement that said "The ambiguity and lack of clarity contained within some of the amendments will mean that it is unlikely to introduce meaningful change, which could have been of benefit to society as a whole. The proposed amendment, which seeks to remove the link between marriage and family, is also disappointing, but is an indication of Ireland’s changing culture."
Imam Hussein Halawa of the Islamic Cultural Centre of Ireland stated he did not believe there is a need to amend the Constitution but stopped short of calling for a vote either way. Rabbi Yoni Wieder of the Dublin Hebrew Congregation stated that they would not be taking any stance on the referendum. Michael Jackson, Archbishop of Dublin in the Church of Ireland, declined to make a statement citing the level of debate around the term "durable".
Attorney General advice leak
The day before the referendum, The Ditch, an online news site, published an article containing leaked advice from Attorney General Rossa Fanning to Roderic O'Gorman on the proposed Care amendment. The advice stated that there was a "lack of guidance from the courts" on how the word "strive" would be interpreted. Both No campaigners and Yes campaigners argued that the advice supported their position.
Voting and counting
Voting took place from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. on 8 March. Counting began at 9:00 a.m. on 9 March. The official results were announced separately at Dublin Castle on the evening of 9 March. The result of the Thirty-ninth Amendment referendum on Family was announced shortly before 7:00 p.m. and that of the Fortieth Amendment referendum on Care was announced shortly after 9:00 p.m.
Reactions
Following the release of final results, Varadkar acknowledged that the electorate had delivered "two wallops" to the government and said that it would respect the result. The Leader of the Opposition Mary Lou McDonald said that the government had "come up short in terms of the caring wording" and that there had been a "lack of clarity", but insisted that her party was still "very much" in touch with the public. Aontú supporters gathered to celebrate the referendum result at the courtyard of Dublin Castle.