Critics have rounded on the Irish taoiseach after the government’s crushing defeat in a dual referendum, accusing him of overseeing a lacklustre campaign that was rushed out of a “gimmicky” desire to make voting coincide with International Women’s Day.
Politicians and commentators said on Sunday that Leo Varadkar bore serious responsibility for the bungled attempt to change outdated references to family and women in the Irish constitution.
Voters repudiated the family referendum with 67% voting “no” and buried the care referendum in an even bigger, historic landslide of 74%, margins that shocked the political establishment.
The family amendment had proposed widening the definition of family from a relationship founded on marriage to “durable relationships” such as cohabiting couples and their children. The care amendment had proposed replacing a reference to a “mother’s duties in the home” with a clause recognising care provided by family members.
The three ruling parties, Varadkar’s Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Greens, alongside the main opposition parties plus a host of non-governmental organisations, had all campaigned for a “yes, yes” vote. All were left chastened by the results.
Critics said a lethargic, confusing campaign had perplexed voters and fractured the progressive alliance that had delivered landmark victories in the 2015 same-sex marriage referendum and 2018 abortion referendum.
The stakes this time were lower and the government is expected to weather the humiliation. But observers say it has been damaged and appears out of touch with public sentiment on the cusp of an electoral cycle. Peadar Tóibín of Aontú, the only Dáil party to oppose the referendums, said the results had exposed a bubble covering Ireland’s leaders.
The taoiseach accepted some responsibility for the fiasco. “There are a lot of people who got this wrong and I am certainly one of them,” he said on Saturday.
Analysts and some figures inside the government went further in identifying Varadkar as the most culpable and said his authority had been weakened, though not fatally.
The taoiseach is blamed for holding the referendums on 8 March rather than June, which would have coincided with local and European elections and given more time to explain complex constitutional issues.
“There was only one person insisting on the timing of this – that it happened pre the local elections – and it wasn’t Roderic O’Gorman,” a Green party source told the Irish Times, adding that the children’s minister was being scapegoated. “Rod has been left out to dry by Leo.”
Varadkar is also accused of presiding over incoherent messaging and giving a Virgin TV interview in which he appeared to play down the state’s responsibility for care. “I don’t actually think that’s the state’s responsibility, to be honest,” he said. Varadkar later defended his comments and said the interview had been misrepresented on social media. “Half of it was clipped,” he said.
One Fine Gael insider said the scale of defeat required a full autopsy by the coalition and civic society groups but that there was no doubt vital decisions bore the taoiseach’s fingerprints.
The party was in the mood for recrimination, a party source told the Irish Mail on Sunday. “It is an unmitigated disaster. There will be a serious reckoning at the next parliamentary party meeting.”
