Referendums’ defeat leads to divisions between Ministers over blame for failed campaign

The Government is struggling to contain fallout from the double-referendum defeat after public divisions between Ministers over responsibility for the failed campaign.

In a further sign of disarray, after voters rejected two proposals to change the Constitution, anti-hate speech legislation from Minister for Justice Helen McEntee came under attack within the Coalition.

Fianna Fáil TD Willie O’Dea called for the proposed new laws to be scrapped, criticising “the woke gallery” and “out-of-touch” Greens.

Citing law and order problems, Mr O’Dea said: “The Minister for Justice should be focusing more on that and less on legislation such as preventing hate crime.”

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Ms McEntee, in New York for St Patrick’s Day, did not comment. But there is rising Government scepticism about the draft law, stalled in the Seanad since June.

Mr O’Dea’s stance reflects many in his party and Fine Gael, Ministers among them.

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Senior Coalition figures say the law should be reassessed, but that would require a big U-turn soon after emphatic referendum defeats.

Although Green Party leader Eamon Ryan blamed other parties for lacklustre campaigns, a Cabinet member said Minister for Equality Roderic O’Gorman was chief sponsor of the referendums.

“In the first instance it did fall into the remit of Minister O’Gorman,” said Minister for Education Norma Foley, noting “he was running” a campaign that never took hold.

Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe went further, saying the Government “didn’t make the case with sufficient clarity” on why any referendum was needed.

“We didn’t convince people that the wording in the referendum was going to add to the appreciation and support for care within our society,” he told the Business Post.

Tánaiste Micheál Martin insisted it was “absolutely not” the case that the result and Mr O’Dea’s intervention were embarrassing for the Coalition.

Conceding there were “certainly” lessons in defeat, Mr Martin argued there had been “overreacting or overinterpreting”.

Last Friday’s Care referendum fell after 73.93 per cent voted against State commitments to “strive to support” care and delete mothers’ duties from the Constitution.

The Family referendum, held on the same day, was rejected after 67.69 per cent voted against recognition for families in “other durable relationships” in addition to those “founded on marriage”.

Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín, a No campaigner, wants the Dáil recalled, saying Mr O’Gorman “misled” people about legal advice.

He seized on leaked Attorney General advice about increased litigation, with “no certainty” on courts’ interpretation of durable relationships.

“Yet in the Dáil and in the media Minister Roderic O’Gorman said the ‘very clear advice that we received from the Attorney General is that these issues will not be impacted by our proposed amendments’,” said Mr Tóibín.

Mr O’Gorman’s spokesman dismissed Aontú's accusation, saying partial advice was leaked among advice given on “a number” of occasions.

“The letter from the Attorney General states that the proposed amendment ‘will retain the special recognition of the institution of marriage, which will allow the Oireachtas to continue to distinguish between married and unmarried couples, and, by extension, marital families and non-marital families where appropriate’,” said the spokesman.

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