By Ken Carty, The University of British Columbia.

Well over a decade ago now Theresa Reidy posted a blog comment asking “Referendums in Ireland, how many more can we take?” Rather than addressing the numerical question head on she went on to note how ineffective the process was as a mechanism for democratic policy-making. Few disagreed, and the country has finally created an electoral commission that was given its first outing during the recent ‘women and care’ referendums. Whatever the judgment on the commission’s impact on the process, the overwhelming defeat of the two referendums again gives pause for thought. Theresa’s problem may not be the number of referendums – it may be the constitution itself.

Bunreacht na hÉireann was created in 1937 to encompass and structure a De Valerian conception of Ireland as a traditional, rural, catholic society. Over the following four decades it stood the test of time, underpinning the Fianna Fáil regime and state. Although the referendum process was a distinctive element of the constitution (and had been used to legitimate its adoption), it was very little used over those years. Twice the party itself had used it in an effort to alter the electoral system that would copper fasten its position as the nation’s “natural governing party”, and then referendums were used to significantly change the constitution to provide for Irelands accession to Europe and the ‘recognition’ of other religions, as well as to expand the vote for University Senators – a provision yet to be implemented.

That pattern of infrequent constitutional referendums started changing in the long decade that saw the erosion of the regime and Fianna Fáil hegemony. During the dozen years from 1983 voters were invited to cast ballots in nine constitutional referendums, three times as often as in general elections during the same period. Most dealt with Europe, or the contentious social issues of abortion and divorce that were beginning to divide an increasingly secular country. Although the constitution was beginning to be questioned, an elite Constitution Review Group argued that had “stood the test of time quite well”, despite suggesting over a hundred possible changes. Not long after, an All-Party Oireachtas committee also concluded the constitution was a fundamentally sound document.

Despite those supportive judgments, the years since 1995 have seen a seemingly endless cavalcade of constitutional referendums – twenty-four in just twenty-seven years. And there doesn’t appear to be been any systematic pattern to the country’s referendum politics for the changes have included near equal numbers in four different areas: 1) government organization, 2) social-cultural issues, 3) European institutional relationships, and 4) legal practices and principles. Although all these referendums have been initiated by the government of the day, not all have passed, evidence perhaps of the lack of any disciplined process for debating and defining the state’s fundamental principles and practices. Surely there are few other democracies whose constitutional framework and provisions are so apparently unsettled that they engender a seemingly endless stream of referendums claims from groups and interests seeking to reshape public life. The country’s enthusiasm for citizens assemblies suggests this is a process that shows no sign of waning.

But perhaps the problem isn’t referendums per se – their number, content or process – rather it is the constitution itself. The reality is that Bunreacht na hÉireann was written for a different time and for a different people. Rather than a process of near annual, seemingly random constitutional referendum ad hockery, what is required is a systematic constitutional renewal. A new constitution for modern Ireland’s values and structures. It would be a massive challenge, but a document that would anticipate and embrace the political needs of the future, rather than one trying to patch up the holes left from the past, would seem worth the effort, especially if one ambition was to entice Northerners to believe there was a state they might want to join.

Ken Carty

PSAI Fellowship lecture (“The End of Fianna Fáil’s Ireland: drifting in an ‘unmoored political system”) now available on Irish Political Studies