Does Ireland need a new Constitution??

Rhamiel

Labours election manifesto argued we do and now that they're in government we may begin to see them pushing the agenda they had laid out..

So the question is do you think we need a new Constitution?

I believe that some parts are outdated and need to be amended surely, but we cant just throw out de Valeras masterpiece,
the good ol' Bunreacht na hEireann can we??

KerranJast

A Constitutional Convention would be a very good idea. Various representatives of different groups in society along with a "superjury" of ordinary citizens would go through the current document and recommend amendments/removals.

TBH we need to do what the French did and have a 2nd Republic. Clean slate.

234

I agree with the OP. Most the problems in question are precieved rather than actual. Any problems that do exist can be solved by ammendment. It would do far more harm than good to throw away our current constitution.

Our man in Havana

A document drafted in the 1930's by a catholic church loving government with ultra conservative views is of no relevance to today's nation. I agree start afresh with a 2nd republic.

Tom Young

No. We don't need an entirely new constitution, we need to expunge the bits mentioned above and make it completely secular. Enhance the rights elements from being unenumerated/unspecified and also modify some other small areas. No need to reinvent the wheel!

Rhamiel

Our man in Havana wrote: »

A document drafted in the 1930's by a catholic church loving government with ultra conservative views is of no relevance to today's nation. I agree start afresh with a 2nd republic.

Indeed it was a very catholic influenced drafting, however I believe it was also a derivative from sound social democratic teaching at the time. The special place of the catholic church has been removed, thank god (excuse the irony :P) by amendment, and slowly but surely other overly catholic ideology is being amended.
If the constitution is scrapped what happens to all the important precedent and philosophies our State has its fundamental foundations in?

Rhamiel

Tom Young wrote: »

No. We don't need an entirely new constitution, we need to expunge the bits mentioned above and make it completely secular. Enhance the rights elements from being unenumerated/unspecified and also modify some other small areas. No need to reinvent the wheel!

I'd agree, although the courts appear to be comprehensive enough in 'discovering' rights and seem to view this as being more favourable than specifically enumerating them.
An area badly in need of amendment in my opinion are the articles 41 & 42 in relation to family and education. This is definitely an area that needs to be secular as you say.. its completely biased towards the catholic ideology of marriage!

Tom Young

As a hook to hang many things off, the Constitution as is, has endured.

Lockstep

It's grand. Few things need to be removed but broadly, it's a pretty damn good Constitution. I see no need to scrap it.

234

Our man in Havana wrote: »

A document drafted in the 1930's by a catholic church loving government with ultra conservative views is of no relevance to today's nation. I agree start afresh with a 2nd republic.

Yes, but if you look at how the Constitution operates in practice there are pleanty of instances where the court found that the Constitution mandated a position that was directly contrary to Catholic teaching. Some aspects still retain a Catholic influence, some are much more progressive.
Gerard Hogan (Now Hogan J) wrote a great article on this a few years ago: ‘De Valera, the Constitution and the historians’ (2005) 40 Ir. Jur. (ns.) 293.