Gavan Reilly

• This is such an unexpected and unprecedented development that the law outlining how the signatures are verified dates from 1944!
• Although the petition doesn’t need to be presented until four days after it’s passed by the Oireachtas, the organisers will need to be wary of the possibility of a petition for early signature: the reason there is a four-day window is because the Constitution says the President only signs a bill between five and seven days after the Oireachtas passes it. This is pushed forward in the case of a motion for early signature – meaning that, if he was so minded, the President could accede to the motion for early signature and sign the Act into law before the petition picks up the necessary signatures. Also, given the political urgency around getting this treaty ratified as soon as practicable,
• This is a separate clause to Article 26 under which the President can refer a Bill to the Supreme Court, and adds a degree of discretion to the President that they rarely have otherwise. Article 27 is quite clear in that even if the Supreme Court is being asked to rule on its constitutionality (though only under Article 26, and not in a private claim) and it deems a referendum not to be necessary, the President can still fire ahead and order the referendum anyway. This is in line with the President’s role as the guardian of the Constitution, and his need to protect the spirit of its intentions as well as the letter of the law.
• Parliamentary arithmetic means the government is never in danger when it’s trying to legislate, but in this case the margins are wafer-thin. Let’s have a look at the breakdown of both houses:
• Dail:
• Fine Gael 74 (plus one defector, Denis Naughten)
• Labour 35 (plus three defectors, Willie Penrose, Tommy Broughan and Patrick Nulty)
• Fianna Fáil 19
• Sinn Féin 14
• United Left Alliance 5
• Non-ULA from the technical group 11
• Other independents 3
• Seanad:
• Fine Gael: 19
• Labour: 12
• Fianna Fáil: 14
• Sinn Féin: 3
• Independent university senators: 5
• Independent Taoiseach’s nominees: 7

Let’s first deal with the Dáil, which has 166 members, meaning 56 is the magic number.

• The Technical Group, which has engineered this campaign, has 16. Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil have both asked for a referendum. Add all of those together and we’re on 49. There are seven other people not subject to the whip: the four government defectors, and the three independents who aren’t members of the technical group.
• It is questionable whether Messrs Naughten, Penrose, Nulty and Broughan will want to burn further bridges with their parliamentary parties – though perhaps all will be mindful that their former parties may face FF-style backlashes in the next election. Either way, the circumstances of each may mean that at least one of the four might be reluctant to jump.
• Then we turn to the other three: Lowry, Grealish and Healy-Rae. The former pair, and the latter’s father, were among the independents on whom the previous government relied for its mandate. While the reasons that they did not join the Technical Group have never been explained, it is not because the government bought their votes: all three have voted against the government in the past months with no apparent sanction. Here, though, we have an unusual situation: in effect, if the government wants to ensure it doesn’t get pushed into a referendum, it could strike a deal with the three – who are known to be happy to strike deals – to secure their complicity.
• So yes – even though the government has a massive majority in the Dáil, with at least 109 votes, it could have to secure the support of Michael Lowry, Noel Grealish and Michael Healy-Rae in order to ensure it doesn’t get dragged into a campaign it clearly doesn’t want, and could well lose.