Dr. Conor Casey:

I got involved with Home for Good more recently so I am not as familiar with the original wording proposed. The Article 40A proposal and the minority report proposal are very similar. The latter proposes to make a carve-out in Article 40A at Article 45 to make it justiciable because everything else in Article 45 is explicitly non-justiciable. It makes sense to create an Article 40A for a few reasons. It uses the same wording as the other provisions in Article 40.3, uses the same language of the State "guaranteeing" by its laws to protect and vindicate particular rights of citizens, as far as practicable, and because it is so textually similar, it makes a lot of sense to put it in that location. There is an advantage in not putting it in Article 43 because that makes clear that the balance struck by Article 43 between protecting individual property rights and the robust powers of the Oireachtas to regulate those property rights in the interests of the common good are sound and remain unaltered by any constitutional change. There is no need to recalibrate that relationship. This is a new, distinct obligation on the State which might, in some cases, prompt the Oireachtas to use those powers that it already has. For those reasons, Article 40A makes the most sense.