© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Eire’s Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar walks to solid his vote in a referendum on adjustments to the Irish structure known as the Household Modification and the Care Modification, at Scoil Treasa Naofa in Dublin, Eire March 8, 2024. REUTERS/C
DUBLIN (Reuters) -Irish voters have rejected proposals to switch constitutional references to the make-up of a household and a mom’s “duties in the home” in a big defeat for the federal government.
Prime Minister Leo Varadkar had pitched the vote, held on Friday to coincide with Worldwide Ladies’s Day and counted on Saturday, as an opportunity to delete some “very old-fashioned, very sexist language about women”.
A proposal to broaden the definition of household from a relationship based on marriage to incorporate different sturdy relationships was rejected by 67.7% to 32.3%.
A second referendum on a proposal to switch language surrounding a girl’s duties within the house with a clause recognising the function of members of the family within the provision of care was rejected by 73.9% to 26.1%.
Campaigners argued the proposal would enshrine care as a personal accountability, and never a state one.
Talking to reporters in Dublin on Saturday, Varadkar stated voters had given his authorities “two wallops”.
“It was our responsibility to convince a majority of people to vote yes, and we clearly failed to do so.”