Irish voters reject constitutional referendums on women and the family

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Irish voters have roundly rejected a government bid to change the country’s constitution in two areas relating to women and families.

Two referendums on Friday had proposed recognising families based on “durable relationships”, not just marriage, and scrapping references to a woman’s “life within the home” by including other family members among caregivers. 

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said on Saturday both proposals had been rejected.

“I think it’s clear at this stage that the family amendment and the care amendment referendums have been defeated — defeated comprehensively on a respectable turnout,” he told reporters.

“It was our responsibility to convince the majority of people to vote ‘yes’ and we clearly failed to do so,” he said following Friday’s vote, which came ahead of local and European elections in June and a general election due within a year.

To have lost “this badly” meant many people had “got this wrong and I’m certainly one of them”, Varadkar said, adding the government would fully respect the outcome of the vote.

Varadkar had said before the vote that defeat would be a “setback”. Ireland prides itself on its progressive reputation and has overhauled its constitution in recent years to permit divorce, abortion and same-sex marriage.

Official results were still trickling in and full results were not expected until Saturday evening. But all indications from early in the count were that voters had rejected both amendments and by mid-afternoon the leaders of all three parties that make up the ruling coalition parties admitted defeat.

On one ballot paper in the southern county of Wexford, a voter had written “language too vague, please try again” instead of marking “yes” or “no”, broadcaster RTÉ reported.

Varadkar had called Friday’s votes a “value statement about what we stand…