All-Party Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution Reports
On 29 February 2000, the Taoiseach wrote to the then chairman, Brian Lenihan TD (see Appendix 1), suggesting that the committee, when it came to examine the personal and property rights aspects of the Constitution, should consider the need for updating provisions which pertain to planning controls and infrastructural development. In its examination of the Articles relating to property the committee was particularly concerned, therefore, to establish whether the balance struck in them between the rights of the individual and the exigencies of the common good was such as to impose unnecessary impediments to legislation which would either control or otherwise regulate the price of building land on the one hand or which would seek to eliminate many of the obstacles to the speedy roll-out of major infrastructural projects on the other hand.
This report completes our survey of the Articles in Bunreacht na hÉireann that deal with the major institutions of the State.
It addresses the issues arising from the terms of Articles 28( Government), 29 (International Relations) and 30 (Attorney General). Proposals for renumbering Article 28A have already been made in the Seventh Progress Report
Our report deals with the two Houses of the Oireachtas. We have already dealt with the office of President in our Third Progress Report. This report therefore deals with Articles 15 to 25. We have dealt with Article 26 in the Fourth Progress Report: The Courts and the Judiciary.
In its survey of the institutions of State the committee dealt with the President in its Third Progress Report and with the courts and the judiciary in its Fourth Progress Report. The present report deals with a major procedure related to the Constitution, namely the constitutional referendum.
Fifth Progress Report adopted today by the All-Party Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution. This report was received today by the Taoiseach and now falls to be examined by the Cabinet Sub-committee on Abortion