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An amendment may be made to any part of Bunreacht na hÉireann, the constitution of the Republic of Ireland, but only by referendum. An amendment must first be approved by both Houses of the Oireachtas (parliament), then submitted to a referendum, and finally signed into law by the President. Aside from constitutional referenda, the constitution also provides, in extraordinary circumstances, for a referendum on a normal bill known as the ordinary referendum, but none has yet occurred.
ProcedureReferendum The procedure for amending the constitution is specified in Article 46. A proposed amendment must take the form of a bill to amend the constitution originating in Dáil Éireann (the lower house of parliament). It must first be formally approved by both the Dail and the Senate in practice the Senate only has the power to delay an amendment adopted by the Dáil. Then it must be endorsed by the electorate in a referendum. A simple majority is sufficient to carry an amendment and there is no minimum turn-out required for a constitutional referendum to be considered valid. The vote occurs by secret ballot. A proposal to amend the constitution put to a referendum must not contain any other proposal. While United Kingdom citizens resident in the state may vote in a general election, only Irish citizens can participate in a referendum. After being approved by referendum an amendment must be signed into law by the President. However, this is merely a formality as, provided the correct procedure has been complied with, the President cannot veto an amendment. The dates given for the amendments listed in this article are (unless otherwise stated) the dates on which each amendment was signed into law. Historical methodsHistorically the constitution has also been amended by two other means. The Transitory Provisions that formed a part of the constitution at its adoption in 1937 provided that for an initial four year period (from 1937-1941) the document could be amended by a simple act of the Oireachtas. The First and Second Amendments were adopted in this way. Since 1941, however, when the Transitional Provisions lapsed, it has been required that every amendment occur by referendum. One partial exception to this, however, were the changes made to Articles 2 and 3 of the constitution in 1999. The Nineteenth Amendment, adopted by referendum in May, 1998, did not itself amend those articles but rather introduced, on a temporary basis, a special mechanism whereby the Government could order their amendment once it was satisfied that certain commitments made by other parties to the Belfast Agreement had been complied with. List of amendmentsUnder Transitory Provisions
By referendum
'Missing' amendmentsIt should be noted that there is officially no 12th, 22nd, 24th or 25th Amendment. Under the procedure for amendments the formal title of an amendment cannot be altered once it has been adopted by the houses of the Oireachtas. This means that where a number of amendments are put to the electorate on the same day, and one is rejected, an amendment number may be 'skipped'. For example, in November 1992 three proposed amendments were put to the people: the 12th, 13th and 14th. The proposed 12th Amendment was defeated but the 13th and 14th Amendments, which were approved, could not then be renamed. List of failed amendments
List of referendaThe following is a list of every referendum in the state since 19371. The Constitution of Ireland was approved by plebiscite in July, 1937 and every subsequent referendum has concerned a constitutional amendment. Dates given are those on which referenda were held.
Major subjectsThe European UnionA number of amendments to the Constitution of Ireland have related to the European Union (and its predecessors). Before the state could join the European Communities the Third Amendment was necessary. Membership granted powers to European institutions which the 1937 constitution had vested in the Oireachtas (parliament) and the Government. It was also possible that many provisions of the constitution might in the future be found to be incompatible with European law. For these reasons the Third Amendment introduced a provision expressly permitting the state to joing the Communities and stating in broad terms that European law has supremacy over the constitution. A number of subsequent amendments have been made to expressly permit the state to ratify changes to the treaties of the EU. This is because of a 1987 ruling by the Supreme Court, in the case of Crotty v. An Taoiseach, that major changes to the EU treaties require a constitutional amendment. Referenda have therefore been held on the Single European Act, the Maastricht Treaty, the Amsterdam Treaty and the Treaty of Nice. There has however, been debate among legal scholars as to whether or not each and every one of these treaties has been sufficiently far reaching as to necessitate a constitutional amendment. AbortionThe Eighth Amendment introduced the constitutional prohibition on abortion in 1983. Opponents of abortion sought this amendment partly because of fears that the Supreme Court would in the future infer an implicit right to an abortion in the provisions of the constitution. The court had already ruled, in the 1974 case of McGee v. The Attorney General, that reference in Article 41 to the "imprescriptable rights, antecedent and superior to all positive law" of the family conferred upon spouses a broad right to privacy in marital affairs. It was feared that this right might be extended to include the right to an abortion. There was further concern that the Supreme Court might take its lead from developments in judicial review in other nations, such as the controversial ruling of the United States Supreme Court in the 1973 case of Roe v. Wade. It was observed at the time of the adoption of the constitutional prohibition of abortion that its wording was very vague. Since its adoption a number of attempts have been made to modify the constitution in order to clarify the ban's precise implications. In particular there have been two failed attempts (in 1992 and 2002) to strengthen the ban, but two successful attempts to weaken its implications (both in December 1992). The two failed amendments arose from a ruling of the Supreme Court in March 1992, in the case of the Attorney General v. X (more commonly known as the "X case"), that a mother is entitled to an abortion where there is a risk to her life from suicide. Opponents of abortion feared that this ruling could only be enforced in a way that would lead to a liberal abortion regime of the kind found in many other countries, such as the United Kingdom, but this has not yet come to pass (although the government has yet to legislate for the implications of the 'X' case). The Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments guaranteed that the ban on abortion would not compromise the right to obtain information about, or freedom of travel to avail of, abortion services available abroad. Previous constitutionsPrior to the adoption of the Constitution of Ireland in 1937, the state was governed under two other documents: the Dáil Constitution of the short-lived 1919-1922 Irish Republic and the constitution of the 1922-1937 Irish Free State. Each used different formal procedures for amendment of the text. The Dáil Constitution was enacted by Dáil Éireann (which was at that time a single chamber legislature) as an ordinary act of parliament. As a result it could be amended by simple vote of the legislature. The Constitution of the Irish Free State originally provided for a process of amendment by means of a referendum. However the constitution could initially be amended by the Free State Oireachtas for eight years. The Oireachtas chose to extent that period, meaning that for the duration of its existence, the Free State constitution could be amended at will by parliament. In theory, it was argued that the constitution could not be amended in a way with conflicted with the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 ratified by both the United Kingdom and the Irish Republic. However the Statute of Westminster and legal judgments removed that restriction in the 1930s. Footnote
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