United Oireachtas seals May date for peace poll

A Ministerial Order was signed before midnight to allow the referendum to ratify the Northern Ireland Agreement on May 22nd to go ahead. The Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, made the Order after the Dail and Seanad passed unanimously the 19th Amendment to the Constitution Bill, which contains the six proposed changes.

The hasty passage to meet the 30-day referendum requirement sets the scene, as the Taoiseach said yesterday, for a concurrent act of self-determination by the people of Ireland as a whole for the first time since 1918.

The polls will open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. on May 22nd when 2.6 million electors in this State will be eligible to vote. The amendments, including the rewriting of Articles 2 and 3, will be put to voters in one question: "Do you approve of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution Bill?" Ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty will be posed in a second referendum on the same day.

The votes cast for the Northern Ireland Agreement will be the first to be counted on May 23rd.

For the second day in a row in the Oireachtas, the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, won a standing ovation from the Seanad when he laid "a settlement for peace in Northern Ireland" before the House.

He argued that it was a balanced constitutional settlement providing a peaceful method of resolving differences in the future while creating a basis for practical partnership and co-operation now.

"Real balance, which we have sought since 1992, has been achieved, with fundamental and important changes in both British and Irish constitutional law. We are reforming Articles 2 and 3, not abolishing them," Mr Ahern said.

He also said that any British territorial claim of sovereignty, made without reference to consent, going back to the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, the Act of Union or to 1170, would be superseded in the British act and become irrelevant.

The new Articles 2, 3 and 29 provided a mechanism for bringing about Irish unity by agreement between the people of Ireland, North and South.

Earlier in the Dail, the Independent Donegal TD, Mr Harry Blaney, announced his support for the referendum on the agreement, despite his reservations about changing Articles 2 and 3.

"I do not see this agreement as the ideal solution or in any way a final solution to our problems," Mr Blaney said. "But I am prepared to give it a chance while still pressing for what I believe will be the only final solution that will bring a lasting peace to our nation.

"That is a declaration of intent by the British to withdraw from this island while, at the same time, recognising that Britain has, in the interim period, a major role to play in assisting us in bringing about reconciliation between our divided people and the reunification of our nation."

The agreement's legal implications and the consequent constitutional changes were teased out between the Fine Gael leader, Mr Bruton, and the Taoiseach during the Bill's Committee Stage.

Since everyone born on the island was now entitled to be part of the Irish nation, Mr Bruton asked if that meant that every Irish-born person, no matter where they lived in the world, could vote in a Dail election.

He suggested members elected to the House of Commons could present themselves at the doors of Dail Eireann and claim they were entitled to a seat here.

The third question Mr Bruton raised concerned the jurisdiction of the Irish courts. He recognised that the agreement said that the powers to be conferred on the all-Ireland ministerial body were confined to executive functions. But it was unclear what court could determine issues affecting the conduct of its business by an all-Ireland institution under the agreement.