Dr. David Kenny:

I wish my colleague, Professor Oran Doyle, was with me because he has written substantially on the question of the toing and froing of restrictions on religious services which were strict at one point and then almost entirely relaxed. I have not investigated the current set of regulations for what they do in respect of religious services. If the understanding that they are restricted is correct, there is certainly an open constitutional question as to the validity of those restrictions given that there is a free practice right in the Irish Constitution. At the same time, public order in the Constitution as a limitation on rights is fairly broadly defined and I suspect that it would be interpreted as including control of public health rather than public order in the strict sense of disturbance. I think there is a good case for public order allowing a restriction in that case but, again, it would be subject to a proportionality test in the courts if it were challenged.