The Justice Minister has committed to holding a referendum on women's rights.

Alan Shatter says he is setting up a review group to find an alternative wording to the language currently in the Constitution.

The Constitution currently refers to a woman's duties in the home and requires the State to do whatever it can to avoid the need for women to work outside the house.

It comes after the Constitutional Convention recommended changing the Constitution, which has included a reference to the woman's role in the home since 1937.

The National Women's Council of Ireland said last year that the gendered care-giver reference to the role of women in the home does not reflect the lives of many women and should be removed.

It has called for it to be replaced with a provision "which gives symbolic recognition which values of all forms of care work, especially unpaid informal care work".

It also says that a greater involvement of women in public life will assist in the developing greater political representation of, for and by women.

Minister Shatter says he hopes to have movement on this issue by late 2014.

The same group will also look at the other two ideas agreed by the Convention - to include a specific clause on gender equality and to change the constitution so that it uses gender-neutral language.