Talk:President of Ireland

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Eob: If after 1937 Ireland no longer had the British Monarch as its head of state, what was the point of the declaration of the 'Republic of Ireland' in 1949? -- SJK

If I recall correctly the 1937 constitution created a de facto republic which omitted any reference to the British monarch. However for some reason there was some fudging of the issue, probably so as not to offend the British who held onto the "treaty ports" until 1938. In fact the British continued to regard Ireland as part of the British Commonwealth. (See http://www.guardiancentury.co.uk/1930-1939/Story/0,6051,127133,00.html for an interesting contemporary newspaper article.) The constution of 1949 on the other hand was unambiguous and was internationally recognised (even by the British). --Eob

Its is debatable whether Éire (as we were called in Article 4 of Bunreacht na hÉireann) had the President of Ireland as head of state between 1937 and 1949. Section 3 (1) and (2) of the External Relations Act, 1936 sought to use 'the king' for specific purposes, ie, foreign affairs, but you can't have a 'half king' for some purposes. In legal terms, George VI was proclaimed king of Ireland, acknowledged as such implicitly by the External Relations Act in Ireland and explicitly as such the world over and remained so until the passage of the Republic of Ireland Act, 1948 and the resulting amendment of the Royal Titles Act to remove the title 'King of Ireland'. Technically, a head of state is the person who is the legal personage who represents a state on the international stage. Under the External Relations Act, which operated from 1937-49 by Article 29 (if I remember correctly) of Bunreacht na hÉireann, the person who represented Ireland in treaties and accrediting ambassadors was George VI, even though he was described merely as an 'organ' to be used.

So according to the world's governments' legal advice, he, not presidents Hyde and Ó Ceallaigh, was Irish head of state. Then taoiseach John. A Costello in his speech to Seanad Éireann in December 1948, introducing the Republic of Ireland Act, agreed, saying in effect that whomever was the Irish head of state, it wasn't the President, as he had absolutely no international legal or symbolic status; he was merely the state's internal first citizen and chief appointments officer. President Ó Ceallaigh agreed, as did deV's previous attorney-general, future president Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh, when he drafted the President:International Powers and Functions Bill for deV (which in the end, deV never introduced, afraid that it confuse everyone even more! But deV as usual disagreed with everyone, most especially his own legal advisors, bizarrely!

But the situation was a legal mess, one of the many deV created with his mathematical genius for dreaming up complex formulae to solve problems that ended up being impossible to make head or tail of in law. President Ó Ceallaigh celebrated his new status as head of state thanks to the Republic of Ireland Act, 1948 with a series of international visits abroad to the French President and Pope Pius XII in 1949-50. (Sean T. then got Pope Pius into a row with Stalin by saying something tactless!) He planned to visit King George VI as well (the King enthusiastically backed the idea, according the late Queen Mother (with whom I checked some years ago) but timetabling problems in the Áras forced the abandonment of the planned visit to , as Sean T. put it "do the decent thing and call upon Your Majesty!")

Hope that clarifies matters (in so far as it can be clarified. I've spent ages researching the issue and I'm still not 100% sure. And going by the various contradictory answers (and regular refusal to answer) of deV's between 1937 and 1948, I'm not sure if anyone will ever know for sure.) JTD

I deliberately used 'her' because the constitution uses 'he'. Rather than gender-neutralise the words of the constitution, it seems logical to use 'she' and 'her' (as well as 'he and she' etc elsewhere), in describing the current working of the presidency, given that the current president, Mary McAleese is female. The overall effect is to gender-neutralise the overall article without clumsy PC correctness or tampering with quotes from the constitution. JTD 00:55 Feb 28, 2003 (UTC)

This sounds like a good idea to me! I've corrected the article in line with your advice. Pete 01:11, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

How many more times does this have to be said on wikipedia: Ireland does not use the Alternative Vote electoral system but a complex version of PR.STV. And even when a two candidate election takes place, it is never, ever, ever called anything but PR.STV because due to unique features in the methodology used in Ireland it is not Alternative Vote and not Instant Runoff. And wikipedia's continuous putting of all threee terms together is simply wrong, but all efforts to separate them is constantly undone by individuals who do not understand that they are different, in some contexts dramatically so. They are not simply different names for the same thing, but systems that can be very similar but are not identical.

Also - Six Counties is a perjorative term, as is North of Ireland, Irish Free State (after 1937)and so breach elementary wikipedia requirements of NPOV. (Otherwise, an excellent article!) FearÉIREANN 16:39, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

Contents 1 STV versus Alternative Vote 2 title 3 President? 4 Rearrangements 5 Irish President's right to speak 6 Reserve powers 7 List of presidents table 8 Conflicting English translations of Irish text 9 Presidents of Éire as opposed to Presidents of the Republic of Ireland. 10 Confusing wording on style of address 11 List of presidents 12 Irish grammar

[edit] STV versus Alternative Vote

Jtdirl,

Please forgive my slightly grumpy comment on the edit history. You obviously know what you're talking about. However I'm afraid I have to disagree. Firstly, although there is room for a lot of argument as to whether we can say that the president is elected by STV it is simply not correct to use the term "proportional representation" or PR-STV. This can only meaningfully apply to the election of more than one candidate (such as to the Dail). Confusion is added to this by the fact that the constitution itself uses the term PR to refer to a presidential election but this is now recognised as a mistake. In fact the All-Party Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution has recommended (in its 6th Progress Report) that the phrase "proportional representation" be removed from Article 12 so that it simply states that the president is elected by STV.

Yes STV is a family of electoral systems and the version used in the Republic for both the President and Dail has unique characteristics. However in my experience the "Alternative Vote" describes any STV election to a single seat. A vast amount of electoral systems literature and reports of parliamentary committees refer to the Irish presidential system as the Alternative Vote. There are also many who argue that the term STV should only be used to describe the system when used for multi-seat (i.e. PR) elections because this version is very different in operation to single seat elections (e.g. quotas are not necessary, and there are no transfers of surpluses). I'm sympathetic to this view but i also agree we have to recognise that the term AV is almost unused in Ireland. The new wording i have put in includes both the terms STV and AV and i think it makes an acceptable compromise. The term AV is one that ive made the hyperlink because currently the STV article on Wikipedia is exclusively about the PR 'version' of STV.

-Iota | talk 19:00, 8 May 2004 (GMT)

Garryq wrote:

Article 12.2 of the Constitution requires that the President be directly elected by secret ballot on the system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote, although as there is only one position to be filled the effect is that of using the Alternative Vote. European Union legislation allows EU citizens to vote in other countries of the European Union under certain conditions, therefore the franchise for the election of the President is limited to Irish citizens qualified to vote in elections to Dáil Éireann (the lower house of parliament), (Constitution Article 12.2.2). This means only Irish citizens who are at least eighteen years old may choose the President.

Sorry to be the pedant again but as i explain above on this talk page the reference in the constitution to the election of the president under "proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote" is simply incorrect and has been found to be such by a committee of the Oireachtas. To use this quote from the constitution in this way is going to confuse people and to repeat this error. I also dont think we need to bog readers down with a lot of legalese from the constitution or with the nuances of electoral system nomenclature. The fact is that single-winner STV (if there actually is such a thing) and the Alternative vote are not the same in "effect", they simply are the same system so the original wording is not incorrect. Ive added a new, detailed footnote on the whole usage issue but i dont think it is a subject that should clutter the body of the article.

The other thing is EU law only applies to local elections so has no relevence to the election of the president.

Iota 00:45, 28 May 2004 (UTC)

EU law is irrelevant at the moment, but I tried to show that the franchise for the President is limited, and confirmed by the plebiscite of 1937. Article 16.1.2.ii allows the Dáil to change its own franchise as it sees fir. (If EU law was changed then of course it is the constitution that should fall) If STV and AV are the same then your wording too ("form of the Single Transferable Vote system known as the Alternative Vote"). is incorrect, as would "form of proportional representation known as the Alternative Vote" As the wording used in the constitution is the same when describing the voting method for Dáil & President I wonder if the idea was to present a consistency not always seen in the British constitution or show that the president is elected fairly, by a majority as AV was not used in the Dáil because it doe not give proportionality, and can be even more distorting than under First-Past-The-Post. That is, the unusual wording used not so much because it was the usage of the 1930s but to avoid De Valera the problem of having to explaining why a system condemned as unfair for the Dáil was OK for the President --garryq 09:35, 28 May 2004 (UTC)

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8 May 2004 (GMT) Iota said "The term AV is one that ive made the hyperlink because currently the STV article on Wikipedia is exclusively about the PR 'version' of STV." Is this because there is a non-pr system of STV or because AV and STV are different?

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By "form of the Single Transferable Vote system known as the Alternative Vote" i mean the single winner form of STV. The sentence goes by the logic that there are two kinds of STV: (a) PR-STV (multiple winners), (b) STV-with-one-winner (aka the Alternative Vote).

With respect to "PR 'version' of STV" there are two naming conventions about STV. Either (i) single-winner-STV and AV are the same in which case single-winner-STV is indeed a non-PR version of STV or (ii) the term STV can only apply to PR-STV in which case there is only 1 kind of STV and no such thing as non-PR STV. My wording in the article goes with convention (i) because that is closer to usage in Ireland. I hope i'm making sense.

You may be right about Dev. Personally id kind of doubt he gave the matter more than a few seconds thought. Despite the vast importance of choosing a voting system politicians are usually the last to have any interest in it, except when its likely to effect their own hold on power.

Iota 15:28, 28 May 2004 (UTC)

[edit] title

from the article: "As a result of the repeal of Articles 2 and 3 as part of the Good Friday Agreement, though technically Mary McAleese's title is 'President of Ireland', in reality she is strictly speaking the 'President of the Republic of Ireland." This dosent make much sense to me (if technically she is "of Ireland" how can she be strictly speaking be of "the republic of..."?) unforunately I dont know sufficent about the issue to clear it up. Iain 12:19, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Her title remains "President of Ireland", and before the GFA the constitution laid claim de jure to the whole of Ireland while accepting that de facto it only covered the "26 counties". Since the constitutional amendments after the GFA, the constitution no longer claims that the state covers the whole island, hence it's fair to describe her as "President of the Republic of Ireland". -- Arwel 12:44, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Yeah - I got that from the rest of the article, but I want to clear up that particular sentance. Are we saying that (after the constitutional reforms) the title as refered to in the constitution is still "The President of Ireland"? Or was that changed? Iain 16:24, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

See Bunreacht na hÉireann (pdf file) -- the President's title is defined in article 12, para 1. The version shown here includes the amended articles 2 and 3. -- Arwel 19:42, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The presidents title, official and otherwise, is and remains the "President of Ireland" - irrespective of constitutional changes. The constitutional referendum changed little except ensuring that the constitution was no longer weasel worded. Their is good reason for deletion of the disputed sentence as the phrase "Republic of Ireland" has no constitutional status and is mearly a discription of the state and as such when used with the presidents title is somewhat mischievous. Djegan 19:50, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] President?

The article refers to the "president" of Ireland. I believe the proper term is "Uachtaran", not "president". Eamon de Valera himself used to refer to the office of taoiseach as "president" when he was in America, and "prime minister" in England... which goes to prove that the terms are not complete synonyms.

In English, the title of the position is "President" - see the Constitution, Article 12, hence that is what we call it here as nobody who didn't already know the title would look under "Uachtaran". As to what de Valera called his job, the important point is when he said it -- before the passing of the 1937 Constitution, the "prime minister's" official title was "President of the Executive Council", "Taoiseach" only became the title with the new Constitution. -- Arwel 13:59, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

De Valera created a number of Irish language names with english alternatives for a number of key offices and entities of state. In 1937, both tended to be used. Over the years one or other gained predominance. Today the head of government is rarely called 'prime minister' in Ireland, but 'Taoiseach' (unlike in 1937, when 'taoiseach' was not even used in some newspapers, who instead wrote 'prime minister'). In contrast 'uachtaran' never took off as a term, with the office-holder from day 1 invariably being called 'president'. Indeed 'president' has even come to used in Irish also. Recently I heard a Irish news bulletin stating that 'Duirt an president, Mary McAleese . . .! (I cringed! But it shows that 'uachtaran' is now effectively a dead letter in english and is even declining in use in Irish.)

In addition wikipedia policy is to use the most common name in english. Taoiseach is used because it has become accepted as the title of the office in Irish and english. Uachtaran is not used in english, president is, so under wikipedia rules that is what should be used. FearÉIREANN 18:41, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Rearrangements

Shouldn't the "Former Presidents" and "List of Irish Presidents" sections be placed together? It would make more sense if they were. Joolz 00:35, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Irish President's right to speak

Contrary to political myth the Irish president does not have to submit every speech to the government for approval prior to delivery. An exceptionally narrow-minded civil servant in the 1930s, Michael McDunphy, who served as Secretary to the President, claimed that everything they said needed government approval (or rather, most things did, so everything should be submitted to the government so that they could tell the President what needed their approval. Of course everytime the government saw a speech it wanted to stop it just said 'sorry that needs approval' and then did not give it!). Generations of presidents had McDunphy's words quoted to them ad nausaum every time they disagreed. But as they were not lawyers and he was a barrister and renowned civil servant they couldn't disprove it, however much privately they thought the claim ludicrous. The two lawyer presidents, Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh (number 4) and Mary Robinson (number 7) knew the claim was a heap of horse manure and refused point blank to go by it, to the fury of governments. Under Robinson, governments finally admitted that the idea that the President had to get every little word approved was bunkum. They simply used McDunphy's nutty claim as a means to shut up presidents. McDunphy's petty (and utterly inaccurate) set of rules that tortured generations of presidents have now been binned, something that should have happened long ago. President Childers, driven to fury by McDunphy's endless rules about everything, spoke of the presidency being haunted by the ghost of McDunphy. Thankfully those rules have been jetisoned, and that fact is one of the key reasons why a previoiusly moribund office has come so successfully to life under Marys Robinson and McAleese.

The only time approval is needed is when a president is making delivering an address or sending a message to the people or the Oireachtas. In those instances they also must consult with the Council of State. If everything needed government permission then the Council would have to meet every day to discuss every single speech. In reality there have been only 3 addresses to the Oireachtas and I think only one address to the nation (Erskine Childers in 1974). So, of the hundreds of thousands of speeches given by presidents over fifty years, no more than perhaps 4 needed to go to government for approval. FearÉIREANN 00:35, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Reserve powers

It is wrong to talk about the President having 'reserve powers'. That terminology comes from the Commonweath system, and reflects special powers possessed by HM the Queen and various governors-general. The Irish powers may amount to the same, but they cannot really be called by that term, any more than his or her signing of a bill into law can be described as the Royal Assent, even though in practical terms they are almost identical. In the Irish system they are simply 'presidential powers' and so should not be called by a term that is not used in Ireland (and indeed has not been used since the abolition of the Irish governor-generalship in 1936). FearÉIREANN 00:35, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Reserve powers are those that are exercised without advice from a ministry. They are reserved to the head of state, regardless of whether that head of state is a president, a governor-general or a monarch. Pete 23:01, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] List of presidents table

I've returned the table to the form it was in until recently. The current table is useful and informative but more or less duplicates a similar table found at Irish presidential election. It also leaves us without a more simple list of all office-holders in the order in which they held office of the kind found on most other articles about political offices (including the articles on offices such as the Taoiseach and the various Irish ministerial portfolios). Iota 02:58, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I know the colour scheme within this table is meant to mean something, but what? Can I suggest that actually it looks pretty naff. I think an alternately coloured row scheme migth be better. Frelke 08:06, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Conflicting English translations of Irish text

The previous version had: this power must be exercised by the President's "absolute discretion" (or, under the Irish language wording of the constitution which gets legal priority "under their own counsel").

As the Irish version has precedence, there is no need for two differing English translations of the same text. Simply use the one that is closest to the true sense of the statement. Pete 23:04, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Your ignorance of constitutional law plummets new depths (which, given that your ignorance of Australian constitution had led the Arbitration Committee to ban you from editing articles on the topic to do with Australia, is saying something). Both are valid. The Irish one takes priority in the case of a clash. The courts have never had to interpret what the Irish one means in English as there has not been a case about it yet. Political scientists believe that there appears to be a clash in the wordings, but it has not been judicially reviewed it is standard to show both. Fear�IREANNImage:Ireland coa.png\^{(caint) 23:14, 31 July 2005 (UTC)}

Please skip the abuse, Jim. The article doesn't need two translations of the same text in one paragraph. That's just common sense. You've been warned by the ArbComm not to blindly revert valid edits. Pete 23:20, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Using the relevant sections of a constitution is standard. There are two relevant sections, one in English, one in Irish. Deleting them as part of your campaign of harrassment of people is not. You were banned from Wikipedia for one week for stalking me and Petaholmes and deliberately changing things we wrote. As those who observed your behaviour noted at the time, you simply focused on our edits to try to intimidate us. It did not work. Your ban is barely over a day and already you are back to your old stalking habits, voting to delete articles written by your targets and changing their edits, as in here, on a topic you have in the past shown scant knowledge of, and only feined interest when those you were stalking edited it. I simply re-inserted a correct quote from the Irish constitution. Fear�IREANNImage:Ireland coa.png\^{(caint) 23:28, 31 July 2005 (UTC)}

I'm not trying to harass you, Jim. I'm going over my watchlist and making edits in order to improve the articles. I can see why you added an English translation of the Irish text, going by the previous history, but surely you must agree that we don't need two different translations in this paragraph to make the point that the President makes this particular decision alone. My interest, by the way, is not in constitutional law, which is what high or supreme court judges do, but in constitutional practice, which is what applies to politicians and presidents. Pete 23:38, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

As you well know, heads of state are obliged to follow constitutional law, so in deciding to use Article 13.2.2. they use both the Irish language and English texts. If a conflict exists, and there may be (but that is a matter for judicial review) they go with the Irish language version. As it has not been judicially decided that there is a conflict, it is important to state both here. Fear�IREANNImage:Ireland coa.png\^{(caint) 23:45, 31 July 2005 (UTC)}

But it isn't important in this context. The point you are making is that the President accepts no counsel on a dissolution, and we don't need two translations to make this one point. Pete 23:50, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Not so. The President first of all formally is advised to dissolve by the Taoiseach, so s/he accepts their counsel for a start. They then discuss the matter with the Secretary-General to the President, their chief aide, so there too they are discussing the options. (President Hyde discussed the issue with Michael McDunphy, the then Secretary, in 1944, while President O'Kelly discussed the matter with McDunphy in 1948 and President Hillery discussed the whole issue of the President's role with then taoiseach Garret FitzGerald in 1987. President Robinson received detailed memoranda on the issue from third parties in 1994. Haughey and others deliberately tried to force their opinions on President Hillery in January 1982, so what the wording is, and the possible existence of a clash between versions, is supremely important. FearÉIREANNImage:Ireland coa.png\^{(caint) 00:19, 1 August 2005 (UTC)}

The point I'm making is that we don't need two translations of the same text in this summary of presidential powers. If you want to talk about finer points of constitutional practice, please do so in the appropriate article and make a link to it. You are making this article on the President needlessly long and complex. Just compare the two versions and you will see what I mean. Pete 00:27, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

I had forgotten your love of endlessly dragging out pages to whine about your latest gripe. You filled 6 archives on one page alone with your ramblings, when everyone else proved you wrong at the start. Issue closed. FearÉIREANNImage:Ireland coa.png\^{(caint) 00:56, 1 August 2005 (UTC)}

You have needlessly inflated the article and in talk addressed everything but the point I am making, and you accuse me of rambling! You are being abusive, when all I want to do is improve the quality of the article. Pete 01:15, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Presidents of Éire as opposed to Presidents of the Republic of Ireland.

As there is a debate over what the titles of the Irish Presidents have been, I would like to clarify my position on the issue. I reckon that the Presidents of Ireland from 1938 to 1949 should be referred to as 'Presidents of Éire', because Ireland was really a Dominion within the British Commonwealth under King George VI until 1949, when the Republic of Ireland was declared. Sean T. O'Kelly was the only President of Ireland to have been both President of Éire (1945-49) & President of the Republic of Ireland (1949-59). What do other members think? - (Aidan Work 01:57, 20 November 2005 (UTC))

Article 12 of the Constitution of Ireland makes it quite clear what the presidents title is, viz:

There shall be a President of Ireland (Uachtarán na hÉireann), hereinafter called the President...

Their is often a misconception on the states name, Éire is simply the official name of the state in the Irish language and is not the official English language name which is Ireland - Éire was adopted by several nations outside the state but that use does not change its internal usage. Republic of Ireland is the official discription of the state and not the same as the official name and was adopted after the Republic of Ireland Act and its adoption has not changed the official titles of officers and servants of the state. Theirfore, in summary, the presidents official title has always and is currently as stated in Article 12, viz, President of Ireland, irrespective of the status of the state. Djegan 09:48, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Confusing wording on style of address

In Section 6, "Official residence, salute, style and address," I found this confusing sentence: "The President is formally styled as 'President' or 'Uachtarán', rather than 'Mr/Madam President' or Uachtarán." The current wording makes it read as "The President is formally styled as 'Uachtarán', rather than Uachtarán." Is there an appropriate Irish equivalent for 'Mr/Madam'? If not, then perhaps it would be more clear to say "... rather than 'Mr/Madam President' or 'Mr/Madam Uachtarán.'" Lincmad 23:36, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List of presidents

Should't the lists of presidents have it's own page like all the other countries I can [1]--Johnny 0 02:38, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Irish grammar

"A Shoilse (female: A Soilse)" - as I understand it, the editor is confusing the term of address here, with "his excellency" or "her excellency". --MacRusgail 22:34, 23 March 2007 (UTC)