The Seventeenth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland provided that the confidentiality of meetings of the cabinet would not prevent the High Court from ordering that certain information be disclosed when this was in the public interest. It was effected by the Seventeenth Amendment of the Constitution Act, 1997, which was approved by referendum on 30 October 1997 and signed into law on 14 November of the same year.
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Overview
In 1992, during the enquiries of a tribunal into political corruption, the Supreme Court ruled that, as the constitution stood, the confidentiality of meetings of the Government (the Republic's cabinet) was unbreachable and absolute. The court derived its ruling from Article 28.4.2, which requires that the Government observe the principle of collective responsibility. The purpose of the Seventeenth Amendment was to allow cabinet confidentiality to be relaxed in certain circumstances.
The amendment was adopted during the Fianna Fáil–Progressive Democrats coalition government of Bertie Ahern but had been first drafted and suggested by the previous Fine Gael–Labour Party government led by John Bruton. The amendment, therefore, had the support of all four major parties. The referendum occurred on the same day as the 1997 presidential election, and voting went 632,777 (52.6%) in favour and 569,175 (47.4%) against.