James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Supreme Court interprets the Constitution; we make laws. When the court makes a clear and definitive statement as to the basic law, as legislators, we must listen. The test in Attorney General v. X is not obiter dictum, as others have said. It is one of the clearest statements of the basic law the court has given. It has been understood as such since the judgment was delivered in 1992 and it has been the basis for two referenda. It has been accepted by the superior courts in numerous cases since 1992. There is a desperate attempt to suggest that the Supreme Court's interpretation of Article 40.3.3^o can be qualified or discounted or somehow ignored. That simply is not the case.

The most cursory perusal of the authorities recognises that the X case is, and has been, since 1992 the basic law of the land. We have, as Mr. Justice McCarthy said and as the Minister of State, Deputy Creighton, acknowledged, been in default as legislators in providing a framework for the rights which the Constitution grants and which the Supreme Court declared.

See this speech in context