The Labour Party has proposed two amendments to the Constitution which, it says, would expand the range of socio-economic rights available to the public and also prohibit discrimination on specified grounds such as race, colour and ethnic origin.
The party leader, Mr Ruairi Quinn, said the purpose of the two amendments was "to prepare the Constitution for a new era in which Ireland attempts to create the kind of Republic we can be proud of and one truly representative of that title".
The first amendment, entitled "Socio-Economic Rights", would alter Article 20 of the Constitution through the insertion of a new subsection providing every person with four defined rights.
The amendment sets these out as the right to earn a livelihood and to reasonable conditions of employment; the right to adequate health care; the right to adequate housing; and the right to nutrition.
Mr Quinn said that, where practicable, the enjoyment of these rights should in the first place be ensured by individual and family effort and initiative.
"However, where persons or their dependants are unable adequately to exercise or enjoy any of these rights, the State should, in accordance with our draft amendment, as far as practicable by its laws defend and vindicate these rights, in accordance with the principles of social justice," Mr Quinn said.
The Labour leader said that should the amendments be passed at a constitutional referendum then the Labour Party would in government seek to introduce legislation to define each of the four rights.
The second amendment, "Equality Before the Law", seeks to extend the current constitutional guarantee of equality.
The Labour Party considers the present wording of Article 40, section 1, which refers to all citizens as "human persons", as too narrow.
The amendment states: "No person shall unfairly suffer discrimination, direct or indirect, on any ground such as race, colour, language, nationality, national, social or ethnic origin, membership of the Traveller community, age, gender, disability, sexual orientation, culture, religion, political or other opinion, birth or marital, family or other status."