Press release: Bacik Welcomes First Meeting of Constitutional Convention

STATEMENT BY SENATOR IVANA BACIK

Labour Party Seanad leader and Spokesperson on Justice

Friday 30^th November 2012


BACIK WELCOMES FIRST MEETING OF CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION

Senator Ivana Bacik today welcomed the holding of the first meeting of the Constitutional Convention, to take place tomorrow Saturday 1^st December at Dublin Castle.

Speaking today, Senator Bacik said:

“I am delighted and honoured to be leader of the Labour delegation to the Convention, and am very pleased that the Convention is meeting for the first time tomorrow. This exciting initiative represents the first attempt by any government to provide for a citizen-led programme of constitutional reform – and has real potential to bring about changes to some of the most problematic and contentious aspects of the current text.

“I hope and believe that the report of the Convention will lead to the removal of the outdated references to women's ‘place in the home'; and to the removal of the offence of blasphemy. I hope we will see marriage equality finally happen as a result of this report, and would personally very much like to see the inclusion of social and economic rights being considered by the Convention as a further relevant matter after the substantive issues with which we have to deal first. The Convention will only have 12 months from the date of the first meeting tomorrow, in which to conduct our discussions and deliberations, and to report on these. The process provides real potential for reconstruction and revision of many outdated provisions in the 1937 text – it is appropriate that we start to conduct this detailed review on the 75^th anniversary of our Constitution.”

ENDS