Members may be surprised, in view of that lengthy history, to see that the Bill contains just nine sections. It is, nevertheless, quite a complex and controversial measure, and to some extent that explains why it has taken so long to get to this point in its passage through the Oireachtas. As a measure of that complexity, 52 Committee Stage amendments were tabled to the Bill. At Report Stage that number rose to 61. The complexity arises from the fact that, as I have explained, the purpose of the Bill is to provide for the harmonious co-existence of two separate streams of rights and fundamental freedoms. One such stream is the existing one founded on constitutional sovereignty contained in the fundamental rights articles in the 1937 Constitution, Bunreacht na hÉireann. This incorporates our system of judicial supervision and protection of those rights – something as I remarked earlier that is unique among our fellow contracting states of the Council of Europe, and which must remain paramount. The second stream is the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which of itself is not a constitutional document. It was never meant to be a constitution for the contracting states and does not actually require that its provisions be incorporated into national legal systems. It is, nevertheless, an international human rights instrument to which the State is bound in international law, and under which the State has agreed to allow individual citizens the right of access to an international court to determine whether it is in breach of its obligations under it. A further layer of complexity is caused by the fact that under the Constitution, the sole and exclusive maker of laws in this State is the Oireachtas.