Ellen Coyne: ‘If the Government really values family care, it should give stay-at-home parents a social welfare payment’
‘In any society, a social policy that relieves the economic pressure from parents who would like to spend more time with their children is a good one’
Referendums in Ireland are often fought along the same battle lines, even when the votes themselves are supposed to be about different things. We have gotten used to plebiscites that have become vehement fights to either liberate modern Ireland from the oppressive forces of its past, or retain important values from the nefarious threat of liberal woke politics — depending on your perspective.
And at first glance, this referendum campaign seems to have the contours of every other milestone social vote that we’ve held in recent times. The same conservative voices on the No side, the same feminist campaign groups on the Yes. I’ve heard people joke about deciding how to vote based not on what they support, but who they oppose. “If the Iona Institute is against it, I’m in favour of it,” kind of thing.
