Several referenda expected after year-long review

A YEAR-LONG review of the Constitution is expected to be announced in the coming weeks and could result in several more referendum proposals being put before the public.

A constitutional convention was first promised by Labour ahead of February’s general election and subsequently included in the Programme for Government agreed between it and Fine Gael.

Environment Minister Phil Hogan said recently he expected the convention to be established within a matter of weeks.

The country voted on Thursday on two referenda — one giving the Government the ability to cut judicial pay, the second to grant Oireachtas inquiries greater investigative powers.

The judicial pay referendum was comfortably passed, but the Oireachtas inquiries referendum was defeated.

The latter issue may be among the areas which the constitutional convention is asked to examine.

“At some point a decision will have to be made as to whether we revisit this issue on its own, or whether perhaps we consider it as part of the proposals in the constitutional convention that we intend to go ahead with,” Tánaiste and Labour leader Eamon Gilmore told RTÉ over the weekend.

The Programme for Government has already pledged that the convention will consider:

* Changing the Dáil electoral system;

* Reducing the presidential term five years and aligning it with local and European elections;

* Giving citizens abroad the right to vote at Irish embassies in the presidential election;

* Making provision for same-sex marriage;

* Amending the clause on women in the home and encouraging greater participation of women in public life;

* Removing blasphemy from the Constitution;

* Examining whether the voting age should be lowered to 17.

Among the other reforms the Government has committed to are:

* Inserting specific children’s rights into the Constitution;

* Abolishing the Seanad;

* Protecting whistle-blowers;

* Allowing for the establishment of a distinct, separate system of family courts to streamline the family law system.

It is thought that the Seanad abolition proposal may now be tucked into the constitutional convention as well. But one issue which will be taken separately is the heavily-delayed children’s rights referendum, which is expected to go before the public next year.