‘Systematizing’ constitutional deliberation: the 2016–18 citizens’ assembly in Ireland

ABSTRACT

Ireland has become something of a trail-blazer in the use of deliberative methods in the process of constitutional review. It is the first case in which the process has been employed a second time: the Irish Citizens’ Assembly (2016–18) followed upon the Convention on the Constitution (2012–14). The creation of two mini-publics in quick succession and their significant role in supporting key referendums for constitutional change that followed (marriage equality in 2015 and abortion in 2018) suggests a degree of ‘systemization’ of deliberation in the Irish process of constitutional review. This report sets out the basic details of the most recent Citizens’ Assembly – how it was set up, its agenda, its manner of operation, and its outcomes. We conclude with a brief discussion of the recent Irish experience of constitutional mini-publics and the degree to which they speak to a process of systematizing deliberation in the Irish policy process.

KEYWORDS:

• Citizens’ assembly
• mini-publics
• deliberative systems
• referendums

Acknowledgements

The research underlying this paper was co-funded by the Irish Research Council and the Secretariat of the Irish Citizens’ Assembly, in a grant awarded to David Farrell and Jane Suiter. We are grateful to Kevin Cunningham for his research assistance with the survey data, and to Ken Carty for his helpful feedback on an earlier draft.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

David M. Farrell http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0528-4335

Notes

1 The main area of distinction between the Constitutional Convention and the Citizens’ Assembly was that the former’s membership included 33 members of parliament, with a smaller number of citizen member (p. 66). It is likely that the reason for not including politician members on this occasion was due to the first topic being considered – abortion – which has proven to be politically sensitive and therefore one that many politicians would prefer to steer clear of (cf. McGraw, 2015). For more on the Convention, see Farrell, Harris, and Suiter (2017).

2 The resolution announcing the establishment of the Assembly is available here: https://www.citizensassembly.ie/en/About-the-Citizens-Assembly/Resolution.pdf

3 The Fine Gael manifesto had proposed two other agenda items for the Citizens’ Assembly, that were not ultimately included: Seanad reform, and the power of Oireachtas committees to conduct inquiries.

4 The expert advisory group members were appointed by the Secretariat. Its membership changed depending on the topic (e.g. when discussing abortion the group consisted of medics, lawyers and ethicists), but there was one core member with academic expertise in deliberation who remained a member of the advisory group throughout.

5 Details of the methodology used to recruit the members and the representatives of the membership are available here: https://www.citizensassembly.ie/en/About-the-Citizens-Assembly/Who-are-the-Members/ Indeed, the need to renew members was the cause of some public controversy when in early 2018 the Assembly secretariat discovered that the recruitment of seven new members between December 2017 and January 2018 had not followed the proper procedures for random selection. As a result, a number of the votes of the Assembly in the weekend affected (which had considered ‘the manner in which referenda are held’) were deemed uncertain because they had been close votes. Full details are provided here: https://www.citizensassembly.ie/en/News/Statement-from-the-Citizens%E2%80%99-Assembly.html

6 See chapter 8 of the final report, available here: https://www.citizensassembly.ie/en/Manner-in-which-referenda-are-held/Final-Report-on-the-Manner-in-Which-Referenda-are-Held-and-Fixed-Term-Parliaments/Final-Report-on-Manner-in-which-Referenda-are-Held-Fixed-Term-Parliaments.pdf

7 This project follows a similar study of the Irish Constitutional Convention. For more on that, see Suiter, Farrell, and Harris (2016).

8 Face-to-face interviews were carried out with 13 members of the Assembly in the final two weekends of meetings.

9 A good example of how this works in practice at US state level is provided by the ‘Citizens’ Initiative Review’ process in the state of Oregon. See https://healthydemocracy.org/cir/ The academic research underlying this is reported here: http://sites.psu.edu/citizensinitiativereview/people/.

10 For more on the Brexit Citizens’ Assembly, see here: https://citizensassembly.co.uk/brexit/about/.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Irish Research Council.