The Irish Government was bound by the terms of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement to submit Articles 2 and 3 to amendment by referendum.
The apparent intention is partly to allow the people of Northern Ireland, if they wish, to feel included in the 'nation' without making what might be perceived as a revanchist claim.
[4] The changes to Article 2 represent a strictly qualified provision of the Belfast Agreement recognizing: the birthright of all the people of Northern Ireland to identify themselves and be accepted as Irish or British, or both, as they may so choose, and accordingly confirm that their right to hold both British and Irish citizenship is accepted by both Governments and would not be affected by any future change in the status of Northern Ireland.The qualification to that provision of the Belfast Agreement is contained in Annex 2 to the Belfast Agreement.
It stresses, however, that a united Ireland should respect the distinct cultural identity of Unionists and that it should only happen with the separate "democratically expressed" consent of the peoples of both parts of the island.
By the Good Friday Agreement the people of Northern Ireland's "democratically expressed" consent must be secured by referendum.
Speaking at the 1916 Easter Rising commemoration at Arbour Hill in Dublin during 1998, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said: The British Government are effectively out of the equation and neither the British parliament nor people have any legal right under this agreement to impede the achievement of Irish unity if it had the consent of the people North and South... Our nation is and always will be a 32-county nation.
They desired the new constitution to proclaim the existence of a single 'Irish nation', and the theoretical right of the state to encompass the whole island, while for reasons of pragmatism recognising the de facto reality of partition, which resulted in delicate wording.
The Constitution refers to two separate entities: a nation, encompassing the whole island of Ireland, and a state, extending, for the time being, only to the twenty-six counties of the 'South'.
Some considered the constitution as placing an enforceable legal obligation on the government of the Republic to use its influence to actively seek the unification of the island.
The British government agreed to participate with a televised ceremony at Iveagh House in Dublin, the Irish department of foreign affairs.
Soon after the ceremony, at 10.30 am, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern signed the declaration formally amending Articles 2 and 3 of the Irish Constitution.
[13][14] By granting an unqualified right to citizenship to all of those born on the island of Ireland, the new articles have also caused further controversy in the Republic.
In January 2003, the Supreme Court ruled that it was constitutional for the Government to deport the parents of children who were Irish citizens.