Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the three witnesses. It has been a very helpful day in terms of the advice that has been given. I was particularly struck by Ms O'Toole's reference to the 1983 amendment which I am unfortunately old enough to remember. It was in fact the first campaign in which I was involved. The eighth amendment was presented at the time as a very simple amendment that would not have consequences. Those of us who campaigned against it at the time, and I am glad to say that I was one of them, made the argument that the Constitution it was not the right place to insert something specific of that nature. To bring this back a stage, this leads to the question as to how a constitution should operate. Should it operate on the basis of broad principals or the basis of specifics? I would welcome a legal perspective on that. Going back to that time, is it the view of the witnesses that the eighth amendment was necessitated from a legal, constitutional perspective?

My final question might seem a little obvious. We keep talking about repeal. For the sake of clarity, could the witnesses give us a legal definition of what repeal means?