SIGNIFICANT, often radical, amendments to more than 30 Articles and clauses of the Constitution, covering every aspect of Irish life, are recommended by the Constitution Review Group in its final report to the Government.
In the most comprehensive examination ever undertaken of the 50 Articles of Bunreacht na hEireann, the review group proposes significant changes in the State's political institutions, a radical recasting of fundamental and personal rights and provisions to cover the Ombudsman, local government and the environment.
Changes in the status of the family, religion, education and property rights, together with the deletion of the Preamble to the Constitution are the review group's most controversial suggestions.
Its proposals include the removal of any remaining Catholic and overtly nationalist - provisions in areas such as the Preamble and the amendment of Article 44 on religion.
The fundamental and personae rights provisions are transformed to take into account the de facto changes in society, such as non marital families, over the last 60 years. There are also several tidying up provisions, clarifying, for example, the explicit role of the President on the dissolution of the Dail.
The group also recommends that there ought not to be a constitutional barrier to the public funding of a referendum campaign, provided that the manner of equitable allotment of such funding is entrusted to an independent body, such as the proposed Constituency Commission. The total sum to be allotted should be subject to legislative regulation.
The report suggests that such a constitutional safeguard would meet the principal objection to the unlawful funding identified in the McKenna case during the divorce referendum by ensuring that the Government did not spend public money "in a self interested and unregulated fashion in favour of one side, thereby distorting the political process".
Since an extension of the logic of the McKenna case could render unconstitutional proposals to fund political parties from the public purse, it proposes that the constitutionality of public funding for political parties may need to be similarly addressed.
The 700 page report of the review group, chaired by Dr T.K. Whitaker, will be submitted to an informal all party committee on the Constitution established to coincide with its publication yesterday afternoon.
The Government parties will be proposing Mr Jim O'Keeffe, the Fine Gael TD, as chairman at its first meeting in the Department of the Taoiseach "in the very near future".
The all party committee, in its terms of reference, is charged with the task of establishing those areas "where constitutional change may be desirable or necessary".
In its review, it will have regard to the report of the review group and certain constitutional matters - Articles 2 and 3, the right to bail, Cabinet confidentiality and votes for emigrants - which are the subject of separate consideration by the Government.
It is expressly agreed that participation in the all party committee will involve "no obligation to support any recommendations which might be made, even if made unanimously".
The all party committee "may" bring forward an interim report on specific sections of the Constitution by early 1997, and a final report "as soon as possible thereafter".
These cop out clauses are destined to relegate the most comprehensive report on the Constitution in its 60 years' existence to the shelves of party offices, at least until after the next general election.
The low priority which the Government attached to the report was evidenced in the slovenly way in which all 700 pages of it were dumped, unceremoniously, on media desks at 4.30 p.m. yesterday afternoon. There was no press conference, as originally planned, to launch it.
The Government, in this respect, did no justice to the report, to the calibre of the group of experts who held 140 meetings to conclude it by May 31st, or to the scale of the work undertaken.
The only other study of its kind, the 1967 all party committee, chaired by the late Mr George Colley, had 51 pages in the main body of its report and dealt only with aspects of the Constitution. The body of this new report runs to 472 pages, excluding appendices, and covers almost every facet of life in Ireland today.
It is, reportedly, a tribute to Dr Whitaker himself, and the mainly legal members of the review group, that no party views were expressed during its deliberations. Yet, the political parties nominated one representative each to the body: the Attorney General, Mr Dermot Gleeson, representing the Government and Fine Gael; Mr David Byrne SC, Fianna Fail; Mr Diarmuid McGuinness BL, Labour; Mr Gerard Hogan BL, Progressive Democrats; and Dr Kathleen Lynch, Democratic Left.
Sources have also confirmed that there was no party political breakdown either in the majority and minority recommendations made by the group.
The controversial nature of many recommendations will ensure their non implementation in an election year.
There is a grave danger that this excellent work will be of more interest to lawyers and academics than to the politicians.
It can only be hoped that, after next year's election, the Report of the 1996 Constitution Review Group will be more than the subject of questions in a law examination.
