Draft bills providing for the referendums are expected to be published within days after equality minister Roderic O’Gorman today published general schemes setting out the text of the proposed amendments.

The proposed 39th amendment to the Constitution will change Article 41 to provide for a wider concept of family by inserting the words “whether founded on marriage or on other durable relationships”.

It also proposes to delete from Article 41.3.1, which deals with marriage, a reference to marriage being the institution “on which the family is founded”.

The proposed 40th amendment to the Constitution will entirely delete Article 41.2, which refers to women’s “life within the home” and says that “mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home”.

It will also insert a new Article 42B which states: “The State recognises that the provision of care, by members of a family to one another by reason of the bonds that exist among them, gives to Society a support without which the common good cannot be achieved, and shall strive to support such provision.”

Next year’s referendums, if approved by the Oireachtas, will be the first in which the State’s new permanent electoral commission will play a role.

Ms Justice Marie Baker of the Supreme Court, chair of An Coimisiún Toghcháin, said: “As Ireland’s independent electoral commission, An Coimisiún Toghcháin is looking forward to running our very first referendum information campaign since we took over this important role from the Referendum Commission earlier this year.”