Michael D struggling with presidential workload.

He does have staff for this purpose. I'm aware he had an advisor with a legal and academic background from UCC on staff in the Presidential office for instance. He also has his very own General Secretary advising him.

The Article 26 reference power is a double edge sword

the case must be brought within a specified time frame, and even with the best minds in the law library and court, it’s extremely hard to identify Constitutional issues when you are only dealing with hypothetical issues rather than a person appearing before the court with a specific set of facts (which the court first seeks to deal with the legislation and facts itself and then Constitutional issues) . Some Constitutional problems are not obvious or foreseeable until a year or two down the road

If the court deems a bill as Constitutional , it’s going to be very very difficult for a member of the public to successfully challenge the act later on due to the extra protection of constitutionality it will enjoy - thus sometimes , it will be better off for a President not to go to the Supreme Court if there are question marks about whether it really is unconstitutional, let the public do it

Point is, this takes time for the council to set up and scrutinise the bill and the Supreme Court itself has a huge case load before it (not as bad since the Court of Appeal was created)

considering that the courts must assume that the Oireachtas does consider the constitutional issues of every bill, and as ever have seen , previous Attorney Generals claiming X is constitutional but refusing to release the letter of advice to the Oireachtas for the oppositions legal team to look at it …. Not really sure there’s wisdom in the court being so quick to defer to the Oireachtas on that point. It’s not like discussions on the Constitution are uttered much in the Dáil or Seanad sessions or at the committee, based on the transcripts and Oireachtas reports

at the same time, action is needed to legislate expediently due to Covid , and considering the Court can’t and doesn’t interfere with the Oireachtas on everything (separation of powers) … Michael D needs to cop on . We are in serious unprecedented times. Everyone should bear this in mind the next time we are asked to vote for politicians of advanced age

Suoerior Court Judges have mountains of cases before then to consider and write up judgments … not sure Higgins can complain as he can delegate the bills into committees amongst his legal staff.. it’s not like the Law Library are that busy to turn down a prestigious gig

its really hard to ignore the fact that he’s had a soft 10 years, with running around to mostly pointless back splapping tea parties around the world , chalking up expenses, waffling about left wing despots and as you said, reciting “poetry” , god forbid he has to do some actual work every now and again .

this latest statement should not have been made public , the government, if it had a backbone would look for revenge after this stunt and frustrate the rest of his tenure with regard to expenses, and what trips he can make and what speeches he can vomit out. Alas, for some strange reason he’s popular . The government is hated so they won’t say boo

Not his fault, but there wasn’t one single credible alternative at the last election. Granted, most argued that there should never have been an election due to his popularity but thanks to bould Mary Lou snd the Shinners who nominated a no body (even if she somehow was an MEP and had a famous father and did fine work at TG4) we got an election that no one wanted , even BBC questioned it

Unprecedented time , requiring urgent action from the Oireachtas . there haven’t been many parliaments around the world that have dealt with Covid brilliantly either , with lots of u turns and cock ups - though the previous failure to legislate outdoor boozing to keep the pubs happy when the cops said they’d be required to take them to court and the politician’s cringe response (basically, “ah sure, it be grand, just ignore it until two weeks time) doesn’t help

then you had the fall out with Brexit and the North and it isn’t too hard to understand that the government have had a lot on its plate . It’s not exactly like they have the strongest of majorities either , and it consists of an unnatural coalition of two political parties who have issues with the fact that their history has come to the ghastly day that they both have to share power .