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GAZETTE
B O O K
R E V I E W S
JULY 1995
l l l l l l/ll
Gill & Macmi l l an Anno t a t ed
Cons t i tut ion of I r e l and With
Comme n t a ry
Edited by J.Anthony Foley and
Stephen Lalor. Published by Gill &
Macmillan, Dublin 1995, Softback,
pp353. £14-99.
In his Foreword to this work, Mr.
Justice O'Flaherty points out that for
any new book to be worthwhile, it
must either deal with entirely new
subject matter not previously covered,
or adopt a new perspective on a
subject already established.
There have been, of course, over the
years, many learned commentaries on
the Irish Constitution. This book does
not purport to compete with the
mainstream legal texts on the subject
(there are, for example, very few
references to decided cases), nor does
it deal with the political background
to the drafting of the Constitution.
Rather, the specific focus of this
commentary is on the development of
the Constitution through its various
amendments.
Since the Constitution was adopted in
1937, there have been thirteen
amendments made to it, one in 1939,
one in 1941 and all the rest since
1972. The book contains a complete
collated text of the Constitution
incorporating these amendments.
There is a clever method of
presentation which shows the original
text, the parts of it which have been
deleted, and those parts which have
been added. It is thus possible at a
glance to ascertain what the text of
the Constitution was at any given
time. This brings the book up to
page 160.
The second half of the book goes
through the various amending Acts
208
and contains selected extracts from
the Oireachtas debates which describe
the background to each amendment.
As the editors, who are both Civil
Servants, point out in their Preface,
these extracts were chosen "to be
either representative or interesting.
Sometimes a lone voice made a point
not touched upon by other speakers
but which seemed to be of interest. On
other occasions, brief reference was
made to very diverse areas of interest
and it seemed necessary to mention
these subjects in passing only".
Appendices deal with the development
of judicial awareness of the
Constitution, the 1967 Report of the
Committee on the Constitution and a
Chronology of significant dates and
events.
This book will undoubtedly be of
value to those interested in Irish
history generally and in the Irish
Constitution, its history and
development in particular. It is a
useful reference source for
information not readily found
j elsewhere. Statistics of the total
electorate, total poll, votes for and
against etc. show the support for each
of the constitutional amendments.
Proposed amendments which were not
passed are also described.
As for the legal practitioner, as
previously mentioned, this book does
not purport to compete with the
established legal texts, nor does it do
so. However, the collated text of the
Constitution is certainly a useful
; feature. The extracts from the
Oireachtas debates provide " a flavour
o f the legislative arena from which the
constitutional amendments emanated".
They provide an understanding of the
background to the amendments
! which should be of assistance to
practitioners in crafting arguments
for future cases.
Karl Hayes
Terrell on the Law of
Pa t en ts
Fourteenth Edition, Sweet &
Maxwell, Hardback, 1040pp.
Stg£148.00.
The many previous editions of this
work indicate that Terrell is regarded
by lawyers and patent attorneys alike
as the standard text-book on patents.
Until the thirteenth edition the work
was equally so regarded by Irish
practitioners. That edition and the one
under review are perhaps of less
relevance because of the sweeping
changes made by the UK Patents Act,
1977 and latterly by the Irish Patents
Act, 1992. The thirteenth edition
appeared in 1982 and was the first to
deal with the 1977 Act. The thirteenth
edition appeared in 1982 and was the
first to deal with the 1977 Act. Be f o re
then there was little difference in
substance between the now repealed
UK Patents Act, 1949 and its repealed
Irish counterpart, the Patents Act,
1964; apart from the rather innovative
Irish provisions of the time on the
question of absolute novelty. There
are now greater differences between
the respective countries' legislation
even though in substance both still
remain similar. Thus the UK 1977 Act
contains elaborate provisions in
relation to employees' inventions and
the compensation allowable to
employees for inventions devised by
them but which legally belong to their
employers. No such provisions exist
in the Irish 1992 Act. Conversely, the
Irish legislation allows for the grant of
"Short term" patents, i.e., patents
granted for ten years duration for
inventions without the need on
application to satisfy the Patents
Office of the novelty of the invention.
Short term patent protection is not
available under the UK Act.
The Irish Controller's Sixty-Sixth
Annual Report for year 1993