The Seventeenth Amendment of the Constitution Act 1997 amended the Constitution of Ireland to provide 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.

In 1992, during the Beef Tribunal, the Supreme Court ruled that, as the constitution stood, the confidentiality of meetings of the Government (the 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 led by Bertie Ahern but had been first drafted and suggested by the previous Fine Gael–Labour Party–Democratic Left government led by John Bruton.