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England. How much more appropriate to have a single
Parliamentary Commissioner for the North and South
of this country! Added to this, there ought to be
citizens' advice bureaux to advise on the availability of
social services, etc. In counties near the Border, these
advice bureaux ought to be joint bodies with the county
on the other side. Nothing could bring home more effec-
tively to those sitting on such bodies the advantageous
position, as far as educational and social welfare bene-
fits are concerned, of the citizen of the North. This
ought to force the South to concentrate on these areas
in order to try to raise our standards and equalise the
position of citizens of the whole country. It is not my
intention to minimise the effort this would involve, but
it is vital to the closer association between the two
communities.
CHANGES
To enter the E.E.C. and undertake the obligations of
the Paris and Rome Treaties, it will be necessary to
modify certain articles of the Constitution. This must
be done by the introduction of a Bill to amend the
Constitution into the Dáil, its passage through both
Houses of the Oireachtas and the holding of a refer-
endum of the people under Articles 46 and 47 of the
Constitution. This is an elaborate and expensive pro-
cess. It would be extremely short-sighted to engage in
such Constitutional reform without also examining the
modifications which would be necessary in order to
implement a Constitutional solution such as that outlined.
1937 Constitution
Article 3 reads as follows. "Pending the reintegration of
the national territory, and without prejudice to the
right of the Parliament and Government established by
this Constitution to exercise jurisdiction over the whole
of that territory, the laws enacted by the Parliament
shall have the like area and extent of application as
the laws of Saorstat Eireann and the like extra-terri-
torial effect."
This is an unnecessary assertion of jurisdiction if the
suggested functional approach of co-operation with the
North and the interdependence of our institutions is
introduced. It should be possible to avoid conceptual
notions of sovereignty and to concede the realitv of a
certain autonomy to the Northern community. As a
consequence, the Northern regime would be less defen-
sive of its existence and more prepared to co-operate in
the extended structures based on the pluralist nature of
the communities living on this island (though still
subordinate to Britain).
The Oireachtas
Article 15 relates to the national Parliament, the
Oireachtas, and part of this Article will require modi-
fication in order to allow the E.E.C. treaties and regula-
tions to have self-executing effect in this country as
required by the terms of membership.
Article 16 regulates the composition of the Dáil and
it would be possible to insert a section enabling a cer-
tain proportion of members lawfully elected to the
Houseof Commons at Stormont to be members, at the
same time, of the Dáil. A similar modification of Article
18 relating to the Seanad could allow for representation
by members of the Stormont Senate. This modification
might not be necessary if the practice hopefully arose
that the appropriate proportion of the Taoiseach's eleven
nominees to the Seanad consisted of Senators to Stor-
mont. At present, the Taoiseach has complete discretion
as to the selection of such nominees, but the appropriate
amendment could be a curtailment of that discretion to
this effect, so as not to upset the panel or university
representation of the other members of the Seanad.
The Government
Article 28 restricts the size of the Government to between
seven and fifteen members. In view of the increased
role of Government, a strong argument could be made
for increasing this number, perhaps to twenty. An
occasion for this amendment could be the opening of
the Government to participation by a member of the
Stormont Government. It is provided that the members
of the Government must be members of either the Dáil
or Seanad, so that the Northern member should be one
of the Parliamentary representatives chosen from Stor-
mont to sit in the Oireachtas—so fulfilling this condi-
tion of the Constitution.
Other Articles
No other Constitutional amendments would appear to
be necessary, although it would be appropriate to mod-
ify Article 44 in order to remove the provisions relating
to the special position of the Catholic Church and the
recognition by the State of a list of other named reli-
gious denominations existing in 1937. These sections
have had a prejudicial effect on relations with the
North, and their removal has been advocated by leaders
in both communities—lay and religious.
Similarly, this would be an appropriate occasion to
remove from the Constitution the provisions of Article
41 relating to divorce. The result would not be an
immediate divorce law for the South, but it would place
the subject in the proper context of the development of
a marriage law. If a majority of the people at some later
stage wish to introduce a limited facility for divorce,
this could be considered in the same manner as any
other legislative proposal.
The Government of Ireland Act, 1920
This Act, which was to provide for the Constitutional
structures of Northern and Southern Ireland, was never
effectively brought into being in Southern Ireland, but
forms the basic Constitutional document of Northern
Ireland since the proclamation issued by the Lord Lieu-
tenant on 4th May 1921 which called that Parlia-
ment into being and provided for elections to the Senate
and House of Commons on the following June 7th. It
may be noted that the election of Members of the
House of Commons was held according to the principle
of proportional representation as required by Section
14 (3) of the Act. This principle was abolished, except
as applied to the four university seats in the fifty-two-
member House by the House of Commons (Method of
Voting and Redistribution of Seats) Act (Northern
Ireland), 1929. Voting by proportional representation
could be re-introduced by the simple repeal of that
1929 Act.
The Senate, under Section 13 of the 1920 Act, is
composed of two
ex-officio
members, the Lord Mayors
of Belfast and Londonderry, and twenty-four senators
elected by proportional representation by the House of
Commons. The term of office of the elected members,
which is unaffected by the dissolution of Parliament, is
eight years, one half retiring every fourth year.
It is the Parliament of Northern Ireland, under Sec-
tion 14 (5) of the 1920 Act, which has power to alter the
qualification and registration of electors, the law relating
to elections and the distribution of members among the
constituencies. This body might have power to
admit a certain number of Dáil Deputies and Southern
Senators as members of Stormont on a reciprocal basis.
The return to full pronortional representation would
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