Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Fianna Fáil Party in government in 1937 put the Constitution before the people to be enacted by the electorate. If Bertie Ahern were to appear before the committee, he would be able to go into it in detail, but I remember that during the negotiations he met several of us back bench Deputies and Senators. He broached the subject of changing Articles 2 and 3. We said, "What?" To my recollection, the preparatory work was done by the then Attorney General, David Byrne, along with Martin Mansergh and possibly some other officials. They went through in detail why it was necessary. One could then bring in a mechanism to unite the country on the basis of the free consent of the people - North and South.