Mary T Sweeney: Government’s attitude and €23m Referendum spend is insulting

Aontu’s Donegal representative Mary T Sweeney says the referendum wording and the lack of meaningful and honest debate is an insult to the Irish people.

And Ms Sweeney has not held back in her criticism of the amount of money spent by the government in holding this referendum which she says fell very far short of the protection for family and carers that it claimed to deliver. 

“It is €23 million wasted,” she told Donegal Live. “How many could have been helped with that amount of money? There are people who could have been given respite, given shelter, given extra support hours. 

“And to hear reports or Eamon Ryan saying it will be rerun is adding insult to injury.”

While the outcome of the Family and Carer Referendums has not formally been announced as yet, it is clear that Donegal and the rest of the country is returning a resounding No in both ballots.

Ms Sweeney says: “It is a show of no confidence across the board for Roderic O’Gorman and a definite call for him to go.”

Standing in a large, empty and cold count centre where Aontu is the only political party present, Ms Sweeney does not hold back in calling out the government’s  disingenuous approach to this referendum.

“To be inclusive should never have meant being exclusive,” she said, adding that the vocabulary used in the wording of the referendum was such that the commitment to protection was reduced rather than improved. 

“Shame on the government for even thinking about removing mothers' protection, flimsy as it is, from the constitution,” said Ms Sweeney. “And this was never the place for a gender neutral argument.

“And the real elephant in the room is concern about emigration and family reunification, and inheritance.

“Even the government ministers can’t agree on what the wording means. It is disingenuous. It is misleading. They say that courts will decide it.

“The government has shown contempt for the Irish public with the way they have approached this referendum, and they have denied people the opportunity for open and honest debate.”

Ms Sweeney has reiterated her pre-referendum view that this should never have been a constitutional matter.

“It should have been dealt with by legislation in the Oireachtas,” she said. 

The Aontu representative believes that a small cohort of what she describes as ‘extreme women’ took issue with the wording of the constitution, and that led to the matter reaching the referendum stage. 

“I don’t have any issue with the word ‘mother,’” said Ms Sweeney. “It is a sorry reflection on a woman that she refuses that word, ‘mother.’

“These are a small minority of people who are wagging the tail of the government and it has just cost the exchequer €23 million. 

“It is inexcusable for people in those positions to have allowed this to have proceeded to where we are now without open and honest debate.”

Ms Sweeney stresses that she is not against a wider definition of family. But she says these referendums did not fairly and properly address that.

“People I know that are in same sex or single parent families were saying to me that they would be voting No,” she said. 

“To write out families is not the way to go forward. The only way to go forward is to be totally inclusive.”

Ms Sweeney 

She thanked Aontu party leader Peadar Tóibín, Senator Michael McDowell and campaigner Maria Steen for publicly challenging the wording of the legislation.

A formal announcement of the referendum results is expected by late afternoon or early evening when all results have been returned nationally.