The Laois-Offaly constituency voted overwhelmingly No in both of Friday’s referenda votes, posting the third highest No percentage in the country in both.
The Family Referendum, which proposed extending the meaning of family beyond one defined by marriage and to include those based on ‘durable’ relationships, was defeated with more than 67% voting against.
The Laois-Offaly result in relation to this was 75.71%, well above average, and behind just Cavan-Monaghan (78.08%) and Donegal (80.21%). Dun Laoighaire was the only constituency in the country that voted Yes.
The Care Referendum was rejected by an even larger percentage with 73.93% voting against. It was the highest ever No vote recorded in the history of the state.
All 39 constituencies voted against the amendment, with Donegal at 83.97% and Cavan-Monaghan at 81.25% the only constituencies ahead of the Laois-Offaly figure of 80.03%.
It’s likely that these referenda will be the last time that Laois-Offaly votes will be counted together as a constituency as the next General Election is to see the counties return to two three-seaters.
The three Government parties of Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Greens had campaigned for Yes-Yes vote, as had the main opposition parties Sinn Féin, Labour and the Social Democrats.
Aontú were the only political party to call for No votes.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said that the Government had received two “wallops” from the electorate and that both had been “defeated comprehensively on a respectable turnout”.
“The Government accepts the result and will respect it fully. As head of Government, on behalf of Government, we accept responsibility for the results,” Mr Varadkar said.
“It was our responsibility to convince the majority of people to vote yes and we clearly failed to do so.”
Tanáiste Michael Martin added that the “majority were not persuaded by the arguments for changing the Constitution in this way”.
“It is a core strength of our Constitution that the people have the final say. We fully respect their decision.”
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