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The debate: Have the referendums killed citizens’ assemblies?

The results raise questions over the future of these exercises in deliberative democracy

Catherine Day, chair of the Citizens’ Assembly on gender equality, addressing the opening session at Dublin Castle. Photograph: Alan Betson

David Farrell
Eoin O'Malley
Tue Mar 19 2024 - 06:00

David Farrell: No, but changes must be made so they are about more than window-dressing

The Government’s arrogant dismissal of the Citizens’ Assembly’s recommended wording contributed to its referendum defeats, but it has also placed a major question mark over the future use of assemblies in Ireland.

For more than a decade, successive Irish governments have been happy to bask in the glory of Ireland as “the trailblazer” in the use of Citizens’ Assemblies. We’ve had six of them so far (each probably costing between half a million to a million euro), with lots of interest from international observers making the pilgrimage to Malahide to watch groups of citizens – 100 at a time – spending long hours deliberating on issues sent to them by government. And the members do put in long hours. The assembly on gender equality met 10 times between January 2020 and April 2021. At their inaugural meeting, the chair informed them that “the government have committed to providing a response to each of our recommendations”.

That response was to ignore the wording that the Citizens’ Assembly had proposed for these referendums, wording that had been endorsed by the Oireachtas Joint Committee on gender equality. Instead the Government ramrodded its own wording through the Oireachtas, using a guillotine to prevent any amendments.

We will never know if the assembly’s preferred wording would have changed the outcome of these referendums, but had the government treated the process with more respect (such as happened in the debate over abortion) then we might at least have had a more cohesive campaign, and perhaps less fallout and recriminations. Why, for instance, did the Government not publish draft legislation to address the highly predictable concerns raised over support for carers?

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But more to the point, the fact that the Citizens’ Assembly’s recommendations were ignored raises serious questions over the future use of these assemblies. And in this context, it is worth noting that on the care issue this was the second time that a government has ignored the recommendations of a deliberative process: in 2013, the Convention on the Constitution similarly proposed that the wording should be made gender-neutral and that the State should provide “a reasonable level of support” for carers. The government’s first response was to propose a referendum in 2018 on the making of the article gender-neutral, but without inserting the wording on support for carers. Facing a backlash, it dropped the idea, instead – years later – asking that the issue be considered again by the 2021 Citizens’ Assembly, only to ignore it too.

Clearly, no government should be expected to simply accept an assembly’s recommendations, but it should not ignore or summarily dismiss them either

That’s a lot of deliberation ignored. And there’s a lot more of this. Between them, the six Citizens’ Assemblies have produced more than 340 different recommendations, many of which have been rejected, ignored or so long-fingered that they might as well have been rejected.

If the idea is to survive this referendum debacle, then serious questions need to be asked about how to make better use of assemblies in future. For any future Citizens’ Assembly, the government needs to be more precise in setting its agenda (which might include details on potential red lines). Those running the Citizens’ Assembly (which really should not be civil servants seconded from other duties) should have a firmer hand in keeping the assembly on track (which might include limiting the number of recommendations). And there needs to be a much clearer understanding of how the outputs will be dealt with. Clearly, no government should be expected to simply accept an assembly’s recommendations, but it should not ignore or summarily dismiss them either. Space needs to be built into the process to allow for an open and transparent dialogue with the Citizens’ Assembly (including its members).

In the absence of such changes, Ireland’s Citizens’ Assembly process is in danger of becoming little more than rather wasteful deliberative window-dressing.

David Farrell holds the chair of politics at UCD. He has advised on citizens’ assemblies in Ireland, Belgium and the UK, as well as the citizens’ panels in the EU’s Conference on the Future of Europe.

Eoin O’Malley: Yes. Rather than engage in more of these worthy exercises in deliberation, we should demand more of the Oireachtas

How could the Citizens’ Assembly on gender equality be so out of step with the people of Ireland as revealed in the referendums? Though some argue that the assembly’s advice wasn’t listened to, it never produced specific wording, so the Government could not rely on an assembly proposal, except in the vaguest sense.

Citizens’ Assemblies appeared to be a significant part of some political changes seen here in the last decade. Most significant was the Citizens’ Assembly on abortion that seemed to break the deadlock of politicians refusing to make policy on the subject for decades. If they can fix that, what can’t assemblies do?

It is natural that people will want to use them for their pet problems – biodiversity loss, gender inequality, drug use. But these more recent ones have been ignored by government. It is easy to blame government, but maybe the fault lies with Citizens’ Assemblies.

The abortion assembly worked in part because it dealt with a difficult and specific topic on which reasonable people disagree, and subjected it to intense deliberation with serious people advising the members. There was no sense that the outcome was predetermined. That’s what they should do, be debatable, specific and hard.

The remit set by the Oireachtas for the Citizens’ Assembly on gender equality was easy and directive. Almost no one is opposed to the idea of gender equality – and even if you were you’d hardly admit it. The Oireachtas wanted suggestions for policies that might further gender equality, but it also specified what it wanted.

If gender equality was an example of a bad Citizens’ Assembly, clearly there are ways to improve the process. But is it worth saving?

There might have been a question asked about whether society values the role of marriage in creating secure families in which children might thrive. That would have pitted people against each other to consider a difficult topic on which there is some evidence. Or it could have asked the Citizens’ Assembly to consider whether Irish society benefits from a norm that both parents work. Ditto. But with its directive remit the Citizens’ Assembly brought together a group of specialists in gender studies who delivered an agreed view that gender discrimination is rife and they know how to rid the country of it – a view that was never properly challenged.

If gender equality was an example of a bad Citizens’ Assembly, clearly there are ways to improve the process. But is it worth saving?

If we take the two issues that trouble Irish society most at the moment, housing and asylum seekers, what would a Citizens’ Assembly on either do to help? For housing one group of activists want to insert a “right to housing” in the Constitution. It’s specific. There are good arguments against, but we know both sides’ arguments and politicians are well able to air these.

On immigration, there are very few policy options open to the Government. What potential choice would it discuss? It could become a forum to give voice to opinions that local TDs are already well aware of. There would probably be a sense that an assembly would be there to give a facade of democratic legitimacy to increased refugee numbers.

Putting 100 people in a room to talk about these issues for eight months might just deflect the Government from doing what it needs to do to address the problems. And those 100 people have very limited impact on the greater debate. In an exit poll following the repeal referendum just 1 per cent cited the Citizens’ Assembly as a reason for their vote. The abortion assembly mattered because it steeled the political class into believing that change would not be political suicide.

Rather than engage in more of these worthy exercises in deliberation, we could start to demand more of the Oireachtas: that it engages actual expert opinion, and that it takes its policymaking and legislative functions more seriously than it currently does.

Eoin O’Malley is an associate professor in the School of Law and Government at Dublin City University

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