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The Fortieth Amendment of the Constitution (Care) Bill 2023 (bill no. 92 of 2023) is a proposed amendment to the Constitution of Ireland to revise references to care within the family. On 8 March 2024, referendums will be held on the amendment and on on the Thirty-ninth Amendment of the Constitution (The Family) Bill 2023. [1] [2]
The bill was introduced by the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth on 8 December 2023. [3] It passed the Dáil on 17 January 2024 [4] and the Seanad on 23 January. [5]
If approved in the referendum, the amendment would amend repeal Article 41.2 of the Constitution, which provides:
1° In particular, the State recognises that by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved.2° The State shall, therefore, 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.
Article 41.3 and 41.4 would be renumbered as Article 41.2 and 41.3 respectively.
A new article would be added to the Constitution:
Article 42B
The State recognises that the provision of care, by members of a family to one another by reason of the bonds that exist among them, gives to Society a support without which the common good cannot be achieved, and shall strive to support such provision.
The Constitution of Ireland is the fundamental law of Ireland. It asserts the national sovereignty of the Irish people. The constitution, based on a system of representative democracy, is broadly within the tradition of liberal democracy. It guarantees certain fundamental rights, along with a popularly elected non-executive president, a bicameral parliament, a separation of powers and judicial review.
The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution Act 1972 is an amendment to the Constitution of Ireland which lowered the voting age for all national elections and referendums in the state from twenty-one to eighteen years of age. It was approved by referendum on 7 December 1972 and signed into law on 5 January 1973.
The Seventh Amendment of the Constitution Act 1979 is an amendment to the Constitution of Ireland that provides that the procedure for the election of six members of the Senate in the university constituencies could be altered by law. It was approved by referendum on 5 July 1979 and signed into law on 3 August of the same year.
The Ninth Amendment of the Constitution Act 1984 is an amendment to the Constitution of Ireland that allowed for the extension of the right to vote in elections to Dáil Éireann to non-Irish citizens. It was approved by referendum on 14 June 1984, the same day as the European Parliament election, and signed into law on 2 August of the same year.
The Twentieth Amendment of the Constitution Act 2001 is an amendment to the Constitution of Ireland which provided constitutional recognition of local government and required that local government elections occur at least once in every five years. It was approved by referendum on 11 June 1999 and signed into law on 23 June of the same year. The referendum was held the same day as the local and European Parliament elections.
Amendments to the Constitution of Ireland are only possible by way of referendum. A proposal to amend the Constitution of Ireland must first be passed as a bill by both Houses of the Oireachtas (parliament), then submitted to a referendum, and finally signed into law by the President of Ireland. Since the constitution entered into force on 29 December 1937, there have been 32 amendments to the constitution.
An ordinary referendum in Ireland is a referendum on a bill other than a bill to amend the Constitution. The Constitution prescribes the process in Articles 27 and 47. Whereas a constitutional referendum is mandatory for a constitutional amendment bill, an ordinary referendum occurs only if the bill "contains a proposal of such national importance that the will of the people thereon ought to be ascertained". This is decided at the discretion of the President, after a petition by Oireachtas members including a majority of Senators. No such petition has ever been presented, and thus no ordinary referendum has ever been held.
The Oireachtas of the Irish Free State was the legislature of the Irish Free State from 1922 until 1937. It was established by the 1922 Constitution of Ireland which was based from the Anglo-Irish Treaty. It was the first independent Irish Parliament officially recognised outside Ireland since the historic Parliament of Ireland which was abolished with the Acts of Union 1800.
The Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution Act 1992 is an amendment to the Constitution of Ireland which specified that the protection of the right to life of the unborn did not limit the right to distribute information about services in foreign countries. It was one of three referendums on abortion held on 25 November 1992. It was approved and signed into law on 23 December of the same year.
The Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution Act 1992 is an amendment to the Constitution of Ireland which specified that the protection of the right to life of the unborn does not limit freedom of travel in and out of the state. It was one of three referendums on abortion held on 25 November 1992. It was approved and signed into law on 23 December of the same year.
The Third Amendment of the Constitution Bill 1968 was a bill to amend the Constitution of Ireland to change the criteria for redistribution of constituencies for elections to Dáil Éireann, the house of representatives of the Oireachtas. It was one of two referendums on the elections held on 16 October 1968, the other being a proposal to alter the voting system. Both bills were rejected.
The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution Bill 1968 was a bill to amend the Constitution of Ireland to alter the electoral system for elections to Dáil Éireann, the house of representatives of the Oireachtas, from proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote (PR-STV) to first-past-the-post (FPTP). It was one of two referendums on the elections held on 16 October 1968, the other being a proposal to allow a greater variance in representation. Both bills were rejected.
The Tenth Amendment of the Constitution Bill 1986 was a proposed amendment to the Constitution of Ireland to remove the prohibition on divorce. The proposal was rejected in a referendum on 26 June 1986. It was the first of two referendums held in Ireland on the question of divorce; the Fifteenth Amendment in 1995 allowed for divorce under specified conditions.
The Twelfth Amendment of the Constitution Bill 1992 was a rejected proposal to amend the Constitution of Ireland to exclude the risk of suicide as sufficient reason to legally allow an abortion. It was one of three referendums on abortion held on 25 November 1992, the date of the 1992 general election. The Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments were approved. As these could not be renamed, there has been no enacted Twelfth Amendment of the Constitution.
The Constituency Commission is an independent commission in Ireland which had advised on redrawing of constituency boundaries of Dáil constituencies for the election of members to Dáil Éireann and European Parliament constituencies prior to the establishment of the Electoral Commission in 2023. Each commission was established by the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government after the census. The Commission then submitted a non-binding report to the Oireachtas, and was dissolved. A separate but similar Local Electoral Area Boundary Committee fulfilled the same function for local electoral area boundaries of local government areas.
Seanad Éireann is the upper house of the Oireachtas, which also comprises the President of Ireland and Dáil Éireann.
The Convention on the Constitution was established in Ireland in 2012 to discuss proposed amendments to the Constitution of Ireland. More commonly called simply the Constitutional Convention, it met for the first time 1 December 2012 and sat until 31 March 2014. It had 100 members: a chairman; 29 members of the Oireachtas (parliament); four representatives of Northern Ireland political parties; and 66 randomly selected citizens of Ireland.
The Thirty-eighth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland is an amendment to the Constitution of Ireland which altered the provisions regulating divorce. It removed the constitutional requirement for a defined period of separation before a Court may grant a dissolution of marriage, and eased restrictions on the recognition of foreign divorces. The amendment was effected by an act of the Oireachtas, the Thirty-eighth Amendment of the Constitution Act 2019.
Two bills to amend the constitution of Ireland will be put to referendums on 8 March 2024. The Thirty-ninth Amendment of the Constitution Bill 2023 would revise the definition of family to explicitly include durable relationships outside marriage. The Fortieth Amendment of the Constitution (Care) Bill 2023 would remove references to a woman's "life within the home" and "duties in the home", with the addition of a new Article on care within the family.
The Thirty-ninth Amendment of the Constitution Bill 2023 is a proposed amendment to the Constitution of Ireland to expand the definition of the family. On 8 March 2024, referendums will be held on the amendment and on the Fortieth Amendment of the Constitution (Care) Bill 2023.
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