Conference tallis::celt

    
    
    	I don't think the vote will be taken until the end of this week,
    	or the begining of next week ...
    
    	I hear there has been a lot of ammendments added to the
    	original proposal, so I'm no sure what the outcome will be.
                                                        
    
    	keVin
    
    

    

	In fact the referendum is on Thursday 26th June. Latest opinion
	poll (taken about a week ago) says that excluding "don't knows"
	55% of the people will vote NO. However there was still a large
	number of "don't knows" (about 11%) which could still swing the
	vote either way. This poll was taken BEFORE the late late debate
	which would have been watched by a large number of people.

<CFM>
	

At present, Article 41.3.2 of the Irish Constitution states that

	"No law shall be enacted providing for the grant of
	 a dissolution of marriage."

The proposed amendment deletes this and replaces it with

	"Where, and only where, such court established under
	 this constitution  as may  be prescribed  by law is   
	 satisfied that -

	i.   a marriage has failed,
	ii.  the failure has continued for a period of, or
	     periods amounting to, at least five years,
	iii. there is no reasonable possibility of reconciliation
	     between the parties of the marriage, and
	iv.  any other condition prescribed by law is complied with,

	the court may  in accordance with law grant a dissolution
	of the marriage provided that the court is satisfied that
	adequate  and  proper  provision  having  regard  to  the
	circumstances will be made for  any dependant  spouse and 
	for any child of or any child who is dependant on  either
	spouse."

Associated Press Thu 26-JUN-1986 05:28                        Ireland-Divorce
    
   DUBLIN, Ireland (AP) - Torn between their allegiance to Roman
Catholicism and a liberal democratic tradition, the Irish voted
today in a bitterly contested referendum on whether to legalize
divorce.
   Polling stations opened for the 2.4 million eligible voters at 9
a.m. Voting ends at 10 p.m., with the first results due Friday.
   With the latest poll predicting defeat for the proposed
constitutional amendment by a 55 percent to 45 percent margin, Prime
Minister Garret FitzGerald appealed Wednesday to voters to back the
reform initiative he launched nine weeks ago.
   The most recent poll, published in the Irish Times on Wednesday,
left the anti-divorce camp confident of victory, although Deputy
Prime Minister Dick Spring said the soundings of his Labor Party
pointed to a 53 percent vote in favor of divorce.

   The coalition government, composed of the Labor Party and
FitzGerald's larger Fine Gael party, is asking voters to drop the
1937 constitution's outright ban on divorce, which makes Ireland the
only Western European country except Malta where marriage is legally
indissoluble.
   The government insists the new divorce law will be extremely
restrictive, requiring couples to show a court that their marriage
has been irretrievably broken for at least five years, that no
reconciliation is possible, and that spouses and children are
provided for.
   But in a 97 percent Catholic country with 87 percent Sunday
church attendance, divorce, along with contraception and abortion,
remains widely opposed.
   Catholic bishops have warned that divorced people will be refused
church marriages, and the influential Archbishop of Dublin, the Rev.
Kevin Macnamara, has gone as far as to liken divorce's effect on
society to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the Soviet Union.
   The Divorce Action Group, which led the pro-amendment campaign,
says 70,000 people in Ireland are trapped in broken marriages and
deserve a second chance.

   FitzGerald, in his final appeal to the electorate, tied the issue
directly to the Northern Ireland conflict.
   He said Protestants in that British-ruled province had a record
of denying the Catholic minority its rights, and urged his own
people not to behave likewise by denying basic rights to its own
minority of unhappily married citizens.
   FitzGerald, who was elected four years ago promising a
``constitutional crusade'' to modernize his country, believes its
image of church domination alienates Protestants and makes
unification with Northern Ireland harder.
   But his stand on divorce is shared more by the young urban
population than by those who live in the countryside.
   Dublin, with 30 percent of the electorate, is the key to victory,
needing to provide a 2-1 yes vote to offset the expected negative
vote in rural areas.
   The Anti-Divorce Campaign, a secular group campaigning for a no
vote, says it is convinced Dublin will not produce the necessary
margin.
   It has run a vocal, catchy campaign that appeals to Ireland's
pride in being different as well as stressing the material
consequences of divorce, rather than the religious strictures.
   The anti-divorce group's message has been that in every country
where divorce has been legalized, the rate of marriage breakup has
accelerated. It claims the change would affect the rights of women,
cutting them out of wills, and harm children.
   The pro-divorce lobby accuses the Anti-Divorce Campaign of
distortion and outright lies, and leading lawyers and sociologists
have written to newspapers challenging the group's statistics.
   On the eve of the referendum, Dublin's lampposts were adorned
with posters, ``Put Compassion into the Constitution - Vote YES''
vying with ``It's Jobs We Want, Not Divorce - Vote NO.''
   The latter message reflected FitzGerald's predicament. His
high-tax, high-unemployment policies have disenchanted many of the
Irish, and the Anti-Divorce Campaign hopes to capitalize on this
unpopularity.
    

    First predictions indicate that there has been a massive majority
    against the proposal to introduce divorce.

Associated Press Fri 27-JUN-1986 09:03                        Ireland-Divorce

Amendment Abolishing Divorce Ban Said Defeated in Ireland

                           By MARCUS ELIASON
                        Associated Press Writer
   DUBLIN, Ireland (AP) - Ireland's governing Fine Gael party today
conceded defeat for the government proposal to scrap the country's
ban on divorce in a national referendum.
   Party spokesman Peter White told The Associated Press: ``Fine
Gael concedes defeat. We expect a final outcome of 60-40 against the
amendment.''
   The referendum Thursday would have overturned Ireland's
49-year-old constitutional ban on divorce.
   White said the voting was about evenly divided in the Greater
Dublin area, ``but it was against the (constitutional) amendment
pretty much everywhere else.''
   Radio Telefis Eireann, the national network, projected a 3-2
overall vote against legalizing divorce in this 97-percent Roman
Catholic country. Anti-divorce campaigners claimed it would be
closer to 2-1 against, and expressed satisfaction with the apparent
result.
   Official results were expected later in the day.
   Rejection of the referendum would be a clear rebuff to Prime
Minister Garret FitzGerald's effort to liberalize Irish society and
make the marriage law in Ireland more compatible with practice in
the Protestant-majority British province of Northern Ireland.
   RTE said early returns from Thursday's vote indicated a crushing
anti-divorce vote in conservative rural areas.
   Initial estimates were that 50 percent to 55 percent of the 2.4
million eligible voters cast ballots in the keenly fought
referendum, which tested the loyalty of Irish Catholics to their
church's teachings.
   The radio said the two constituencies most likely to support the
amendment, the port town of Dun Laoghaire and nearby Dublin South,
voted respectively 61 percent and 55 percent in favor of the
amendment.
   In Dublin North, the no vote was ahead 52-48, the radio said.
   In Galway, on the west coast, the vote was running 3-1 against
divorce, RTE said. It said heavy no votes were shaping up in the
Mayo, Tipperary, and Cavan and Monaghan districts.
   The divorce ban is written into the 1937 constitution and can
only be removed by referendum. The government, worried by an opinion
poll predicting a 55-45 defeat for the reform it initiated nine
weeks ago, issued impassioned last-minute appeals for a yes vote.
   The government was seeking to allow divorce for couples who could
show a court their marriage has been irretrievably broken down for
at least five years.
   One of the first to vote was FitzGerald. Earlier he published
signed ads on Thursday's newspaper front pages appealing to women to
support the reform.
   Seeking to rebut the Anti-Divorce Campaign's claim that women's
pension and inheritance rights would be harmed, he wrote: ``You are
being misled. I can assure you that voting YES will not be against
your interests.''
   The three national newspapers supported the reform, stressing its
potential impact on the Northern Ireland conflict.
   ``A `yes' vote,'' editorialized the influential Irish Times,
``will help steady our country, North and South. It will be the
right thing. The generous thing.''
   John Hume, leader of Northern Ireland's largest Catholic party,
also pleaded for a yes vote, saying: ``Respect for diversity is the
only basis on which we shall ever unite this country.''
   Four government members of Parliament issued a warning that if
the divorce ban was upheld, the border with Northern Ireland would
assume ``the severity of the Berlin Wall,'' with Northern Ireland's
Protestant majority reinforced in its belief that the Republic is
``a partitionist, inward-looking and smug state dominated by the
views of one church.''
   In 1983 Ireland voted 2-1 to write the existing ban on abortion
into the constitution. It also restricts the sale of contraceptives,
outlaws homosexuality and maintains a degree of movie and literary
censorship, albeit much liberalized since the 1930s when Ireland was
striving to shake off British influence and entrench itself as a
Gaelic, Catholic state.
   The Divorce Action group says 70,000 people in Ireland are
trapped for life in broken marriages, and none of the political
parties campaigned against the reform.
   But the Anti-Divorce Campaign had the vital backing of the
church, which stayed in the background but made clear its view that
divorce was sinful and dangerous to society, and that divorced
people could not remarry in the church.
   The opposition Fianna Fail party, the biggest political force in
the country, declared itself neutral but its leader, former Prime
Minister Charles Haughey left no doubt he was opposed to divorce.

    <Flame ON>
    
    Happened to be in Galway at the time. It would be humorous if it
    weren't so sad.
    
    The majority of the population didn't think it was
    important enough to vote. 

    The majority of voters continued the long standing tradition of
    intolerance to minorities. (Typical television interview with a
    voter:...."I voted NO because I don't need a divorce...")
    
    In Galway, the Church demonstrated it's policy of non-intervention
    in the vote by an announcement that "The Blessed Sacrament will
    be on display in all churches in the dioscese on the day of the
    referendum to help people to meke up their minds."
    
    <FLAME OFF>
    
    Still, I suppose women can't even vote in a couple of Cantons in
    Switzerland.
    

Re .7 :

    I agree that it is sad that so many people here did not go out and
    vote, but I would question your reasoning as to why they didn't.

    First of all, a large number of people were genuinely confused by
    the whole issue. The campaigning in those few weeks was, to put it 
    mildly, a farce. Both sides resorted to dirty tricks and blatent
    lies to put their point across. An example being one pamphlet by
    the Anti-Divorce campaign which stated that a ludicrously high
    proportion (>90% I think) of divorced women in the U.S. were living
    below the poverty line. It was even said that some schoolchildren
    were told that ''If divorce got in, they wouldn't have a mammy or
    daddy.'' 
    Secondly, many people felt that the government would be better 
    off spending its time and effort straightening out the country's
    more pressing problems. One protest took the theme ''Its jobs
    we want, not divorce.'' And there are a lot more people on the dole
    queues than there are in broken marriages.

    However, what many people feel swung the vote against divorce 
    were allegations that under the proposed amendment, the first
    family would lose all rights to sucession, the family home, etc.
    The pro-divorce groups (especially the government) failed to
    counter these fears, even though the rights of the children and
    dependant spouse were actually being written into the constitution.
    (Wording included in a previous reply). In fact, the current situation
    was that where a house had been purchased in the husbands name, the
    wife had NO rights to it whatsoever.

<CFM>

    An amusing comment heard with reference to the referendum result
    and the defeat of Barry McGuigan:
    
    "They should have had the fight in Ireland and the referendum in
     Las Vegas!"