At a meeting today of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions Executive Council, the matter of the announced referendum on gender equality, care and the family was considered.
Congress calls on the Government to publish the wording for the referendum in line with the recommendations of the Citizens’ Assembly on Gender Equality and the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Gender Equality report.
Congress believes that this referendum is an opportunity to modernise our Constitution.
The language of ‘a woman’s duties in the home’ and mothers ‘engaging in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home’ did not reflect the reality of working women and trade union lives in the 1930’s and it certainly does not reflect the Ireland of today. Today, most members of ICTU-affiliated unions are working women.
Congress fully supports the recommendation of the Citizens’ Assembly that the wording on women should be replaced with a wording that recognises the value of care work in all of its forms.
ICTU General Secretary, Owen Reidy said, “the government must put a wording to the people that values care. The wording must be inclusive and value care in all its forms so that everyone who provides care is recognised. Excluding care in the wider community would be a watering down of the Citizens’ Assembly recommendation and would not be acceptable to Congress.”
