Dr. Conor Casey:

On Mr. Boyle's point, I agree. They prefer individuals who are directly affected by a policy to take a constitutional action. They take that quite seriously, as Mr. Boyle said. I agree with Mr. O'Flynn entirely. An important part of this is where to put a referendum. An important part of the framing of any amendment would be to set expectations. No one who deals with this issue seriously thinks it is some kind of silver bullet. The real debate is between people who support Article 40A and those who endorsed the minority report or whether you think the constitutional backstop provided by putting in an explicit obligation can in a subset of cases be valuable. Looking at the sweep of our constitutional history and how rights to primary education, particularly for children with special needs, the State's duty to look after children at risk when their parents cannot, and things like that, the courts' role has been very valuable there. We can draw an analogy as to how they might perform a similar function with Article 40A. The real contest is whether that backstop will be valuable. It is not about whether this will solve everything or not. It is just one piece of a larger jigsaw of policy and measures.