People in the Republic of Ireland have voted overwhelmingly in favour of liberalising divorce laws, in a referendum held on Saturday.

Axar.az reports citing BBC.

The constitution currently states that spouses must be separated for four of the previous five years to divorce.

But that clause will now be removed, allowing the Oireachtas (Irish parliament) to decide a new separation period before divorce is allowed.

Divorce was legalised in Ireland in 1995.

The country voted in the 1995 referendum by a margin of just 50.3%.

In Friday's poll, with two of 31 constituencies still to declare, voters backed a change to the law by 82.1% to 17.9%, according to results tallied by Irish broadcaster RTE.