Again, irrelevant.
But you keep on putting those “points” up to make out that you have some sort of argument here.
Embarrassing how so many lads just want this to be like the US. “Conservative legal mind” 
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Being a prick doesn’t mean he is wrong. I haven’t seen that the risks/concerns he has raised have been rebutted yet.
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havent paid much attention myself
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Lad of guys playing the man and not the ball. It’s very unbecoming.
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I have criticised McDowell because you suggested voting no on the basis of his expertise. You haven’t advanced an argument or your own to challenge. I’m merely pointing out that McDowell is just one (loud) voice who doesn’t deserve any sort of special respect. And I’d suggest the opposite is often the case.
You’d imagine an eminent legal counsel would have some idea of the ramifications, yes?
Do you think there is one eminent legal counsel in the country?
The same legal counsel has proven himself to be fond of scaremongering in the past.
I’d doubt he’d dream up a crock of shit like “ durable relationships “ anyway.
Duty? 
Wouldn’t the alternative to wording like that have to be some arbitrary number of years or similar?
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I believe wedding invitations are acceptable.
Your basis was that his political party imploded and he got “laughed out of office” (I’m taking it you were referring to the RDS? Interesting what that says about you).
You’ve followed that up with some more incoherent waffle.
In terms of “looking for attention”, I’d suggest taking a look at the polls for the 30th and 32nd Amendment in the lead up to both votes and how they flipped.
And I’d suggest who was front and centre across the media articulating his opposition to those amendments.
A final suggestion would be to stop embarrassing yourself trying to debase this debate into “the other side are obviously evil!” with your McDowell drivel and actually engage with what he is saying.
Because like those Amendments that didn’t get through after looking odds on, people do actually start to pay attention to the debates and you might end up losing without firing a shot.
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They must be racist
They’ll be laughed at
Nothing to do with the RDS.
He made a show of himself in that campaign and lost his seat as Tánaiste and then quit on the party he had just taken over as leader of. It was Liz Truss esque.
If the constitution didn’t have the below clauses in it today, would you argue for inserting them?
“In particular, the State recognises that by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved.”
“The State shall, therefore, endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home.”
McDowell is clearly a blowhard and an arsehole, but more importantly, was probably the worst Minister for Justice in decades, and that’s saying something.
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Le fin lads, this is most sensible thing said on this thread.
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The head of the referendum commission was on the wireless there this morning talking about it. She said no one can predict with certainty what the courts will define as a durable relationship but that they don’t have carte blanche to decide it however they like. The term will likely be defined by legislation. The courts if they have to define it or set standards to it will have to do so with reference to existing case law. They will look to where it is defined elsewhere, for example in other jurisdictions. They’ll look for definitions of family and related terms in international human rights treaties and case law. Basically there must be context to there decision and it must be consistent with the standards in Irish law already.
It’s not the case they can make up a ball of shit and lash it up against the wall. McDowell is clearly scaremongering, but that’s how he operates, he’s an absolute arsehole. If he could still be a TD he would be but he was a complete failure as a senior politician.
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Like him or not McDowell has a great legal mind
Sir, – I refer to Dr Maebh Harding’s article “False promises of original article 41.2 are an insult” (Opinion & Analysis, February 15th).
She refers to the Supreme Court decision in L v L and correctly states that Article 41.2 was held not to confer a share in ownership in the family home on dependent spouses.
She omits, however, to refer to the very important part of the judgment of Chief Justice Finlay on behalf of the Supreme Court which reads as follows:
“If a court is assessing the alimony or maintenance payable to a wife and mother, either pursuant to a petition for separation or to a claim under the Family Law (Maintenance of Spouses and Children) Act, 1976, it should in my view have regard to and exercise its duty under Article 41.2] in a case where the husband was capable of making provision for his wife within the home by refusing to have any regard to a capacity of the wife to earn herself, if she was in addition to a wife a mother also, and if the obligation to so earn could lead to the neglect of her duties in the home. In other words, maintenance and alimony could and must be set by a court so as to avoid forcing the wife and mother by an economic necessity to labour out of the home to the neglect of her duties in it.”
The effect of the foregoing passage was – and still is – to prevent husbands with adequate means from demanding that their separated or divorced wives who are full-time parenting children within the home should be obliged to seek employment outside the home, if by so doing they are forced to seriously compromise the care that such mothers are already choosing to give to their children in the home.
I fail to see how such an important court policy in family law could fairly be described as an “insult” to women who are mothers; on the contrary, I imagine that it would amount not merely to an “insult” but to a gross injustice if husbands with adequate means could demand that their wives be forced to leave the home to work to support themselves and their children so that such husbands could retain a sum equal to moneys the mother might earn.
Article 41.2 is an important legal safeguard for such mothers. It was also relied on by the Supreme Court in the groundbreaking Murphy tax case to invalidate income tax laws which discriminated against married people with spouses parenting in the home. – Yours, etc,
Senator MICHAEL McDOWELL,
Seanad Éireann,
Kildare Street,
Dublin 2.