No need to rush into changing our Constitution

The Labour Party has thrown out the suggestion that Ireland needs a new constitution - and it's a call that was made a number of times on RTE's Aftershock programme on Monday evening, and some convincing arguments were made in the course of that programme: principally, that we need to reform our Oireachtas, and that in order to do that, we need to completely redraw our Constitution.That said, it's a very drastic move.Ireland's Constitution is a document that has served this country since 1937. But it hasn't been a static document: it's one that the people of this nation have shaped over the years, through their votes in the referenda that have given it 28 amendments.There's much about the Constitution that Irish people hold dear: the recognition of the status of the family; the guarantee of the personal rights of the citizen; the guarantee of equality; the guarantee of the rights to property, and, possibly more controversially, in the preamble, an acknowledgement of "our obligations to our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ".A strongly voiced opinion in this country was that the controversial Lisbon Treaty should have had an acknowledgement of European's Christian history and leaning: it's likely that calls to have this element of our present Constitution preserved would fail as spectacularly as the calls to have an acknowledgement of God in the Lisbon Treaty.What's also precious to people is our influence over constitutional matters: only by consulting the public through referendum can the Constitution be amended. It places the Irish people in an unusual position: we have far more powers of self-determination than say, the UK, which does not have a written constitution, and in which referenda are virtually unknown.And that is a serious power, and one which it would greatly suit Governments to abandon. Think how much easier it would have been for Government if they could have, as other countries did, adopted the Nice and the Lisbon Treaties without reference to the people.That eventually the Government got its way by having people vote twice on both Treaties when it wasn't satisfied with the initial voting outcomes is neither here nor there: the fact is that without the say-so of the Irish public, the Government could not sign us up to these Treaties.Somewhat disturbing on Aftershock was linkage made between the need to reform our voting system to introduce a "list system" instead of all directly-elected TDs; and the need to replace our present Constitution, as if reform of the Oireachtas could come only with replacement of the Constitution, and not by simple Constitutional amendment. The need for the introduction of the list system was presented as a "fact" on Aftershock - rather than an opinion; so too was the "need" to replace the Constitution. It's a bit drastic to suggest that we can only get reforms if we completely scrap our present Constitution.It is fair to argue that the voter turnout for referenda is traditionally low; that many people don't understand what the issues are when referenda are held; and that many operate under the simple mantra "If you don't know, vote no".That said, the fact is that people have the right to vote - or not to vote, as they see fit. If the Constitution is to be replaced, will we still have the right to vote on changes to it?If moves are to be made to change the Constitution of this country, Irish people will need to think long and hard about what they are doing, and whether change is really in our best interest.