1y ago

Irish prime minister concedes defeat in vote over constitutional amendments about family and women

apnews.com

16 comments

Ireland doesn't have a prime minister. Leo Varadkar is the Taoiseach. Sure it'd be less clear if the AP used the correct term but I don't think that's any reason to not use the actual term for his office.
- It's a gray area because Ireland is an English speaking country but Taoiseach is not an English term.
  It's normal practice otherwise for the press to translate non-English titles into their English equivalents, hence why we have English news articles about General Secretary Xi Jinping instead of Xi Jinping Zong Shuji.
  
  It's less of a grey area because Ireland is a predominantly English-speaking country. The official name for his office in both English and Irish is Taoiseach. This is in contrast to the President of Ireland, whose official title in English is 'President'.
  I'm British and we never refer to Varadkar as the prime minister. Any news coverage here refers to him, correctly, as the Taoiseach.
  EDIT: And this is coming from the country who, regrettably, are the reason why Ireland now has to be so careful to maintain their ancient language after centuries of us trying to eradicate their native culture.
  
  Taoiseach is irish for chieftain but also the office is called that of the taoiseach in our constitution, so it would work as an English word in a sentence.
Opponents argued that the wording of the changes was poorly thought out — an argument that appeared to have gained traction in the final days of the campaign. Voters said they were confused by the questions and others said they feared changes would lead to unintended consequences.
I wonder how many people rejected the wording vs how many want to keep the status quo.
- I voted yes on the family one and no on the care one.
  While I thought the wording for the family one was very poorly thought out, I felt it was important to change the current wording to reflect what we all see around non traditional families and consider them a family.
  The care one was an easy no for me. It stank of the state trying to wash it's hands of the burden of care it currently has.
  Edit: news here is saying there was a decent protest vote on the family one. The care one got slapped down hard. Last figure I saw was around 75% but that was early.
- Not at all, the problem is there was no clear wording around what this referendum was trying to change.
  There were fears that this could lead to the government washing their hands of providing care to people who need it.
  When the top legal figures in Ireland were debating the impact this change to the constitution would have it clearly wasn't ready to be put to the public.
  Some context:
  https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41348297.html
  
  Yeah the wording was awful. I'd go one further... The state was trying to wash it's hands of caring for the elderly and got told to go and fuck itself with a large protest vote on the family question (which I actually thought would pass and I expect a rerun of it in the future with better wording).
  Varadkar let the mask slip in advance of polling on the care one. All very well for him given he's rich.
- Woke companies are sending jobs there like crazy
  Not sure about the "woke" bit, but Ireland is a tax haven.

16 comments