Minister Simon Harris blasts back at Senator Michael McDowell over referendum wording

A government minister has hit back at former tánaiste Michael McDowell after he advocated a “No” vote in the upcoming referendum on family and women in the home.

Simon Harris takes an opposite view to the “legalistic” arguments of the senator, who was once leader of the Progressive Democrats.

“I’m looking forward to having an opportunity to get into the cut and thrust of referendum debate, because this referendum aims to do a number of things,” said Mr Harris. “It strives to say that we live in a country where there are many single-parent families, and they are not recognised under the Constitution of Ireland.

“Now, if Senator McDowell wants to go out and say they’re not a family, vote ‘No’, then the best of luck to him.

“They’re absolutely families. If anybody was raised by a mum or a dad [alone], they’re a family just as much as my family, and I was raised by my mother and father.”

Mr McDowell said his attitude to the Constitution was “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. He suggested there had been societal changes, but this did not mean ­aspirational language needed to be altered in our bedrock law.

He expressed doubts concerning “durable relationships”, which could be given equal weight to the family in the Constitution.

Speaking in Grangegorman yesterday, Mr Harris said the proposed alterations – to be voted on by Irish citizens on March 8 – would recognise “that in the 21st century in this republic, a woman’s place is not at home in terms of underpinnings to the Constitution, and that gendered language”.

He added: “Men or women can choose to stay at home and to rear the kids, and this idea that the Constitution of Ireland would tell you which – it’s not right.

“Senator McDowell can get into his legalistic arguments about how it hasn’t done any harm to any woman, but it doesn’t sit well with me that that’s how our Constitution reads. And I don’t think it sits well with many people.

“It’s not the Ireland I want my daughter to grow up in.”

Reminded that Mr McDowell was speaking as a former justice minister, Mr Harris said: “I’m a former minister for justice.

“It’s former this, and former that. We have a current minister for justice and a current government that is putting this forward and we will have a debate.”

Told what Mr Harris had said, Mr McDowell said: “I reject those remarks as ill-considered, incorrect and irrelevant.”

Get ahead of the day with the morning headlines at 7.30am and Fionnán Sheahan’s exclusive take on the day’s news every afternoon, with our free daily newsletter.