It should be acknowledged – something not often done, especially by some who specialise in human rights – that the Constitution is the only republican constitution in the European Union with a set of human rights provisions at its heart which are unalterable except at the insistence of the people through a referendum on foot of parliamentary legislation. It is also the only such constitution with human rights provisions justiciable by the people against the State in independent courts, even to the point of over-riding the legislation of the Oireachtas and any Act of any Government or any aspect of the Executive power of the State. The Irish people are the only people in Europe who have a republican constitution with that mechanism at its core. Sometimes people believe we have an inferior or inadequate system for the protection of human rights.