Hundreds of submissions on how the family should be defined in law have been received by the Oireachtas All-party Committee on the Constitution, which is set to begin hearings after Easter.
The submissions range from some defending the status of the family based on marriage as defined in the Constitution to proposals urging the removal of Article 41, which contains this definition.
Members of the committee will examine the submissions over the coming weeks, and will decide whom to invite to present their submission orally.
The committee has already invited a number of individuals to speak to it on matters of specific significance.
These include Dr TK Whitaker, chairman of the Review Group on the Constitution which produced a report on the Constitution 10 years ago; former minister for social welfare Dr Michael Woods and Senator David Norris, who has proposed legislation on civil partnerships.
These meetings have taken place in private, but public hearings will begin when the committee has gone through the submissions.
"The chairman is hoping to report by the summer," said Jan O'Sullivan, a Labour Party member of the committee.
Most of the submissions have not been made public, but some have been made public by those who made them, in particular some urging the replacement of Article 41 and the redefinition of the family to include families not based on marriage. These include submissions from the Children's Ombudsman and the Women's Health Council.
The most recent such submission is from the Women's Health Council, which states: "The family must be defined in terms of what it does rather than on how it is constituted. Moreover, constitutional provisions must reflect the reality of family life in contemporary Ireland."
It goes on to propose the deletion of Article 41.3.1 and its replacement by wording that guarantees respect for family life whether based on marriage or not. It says legislation should be introduced to impose certain legal duties on co-habitees, including same-sex couples.
It also proposes the recognition of children as separate entities, with rights distinct from those of their families, and the expansion of children's constitutional rights accordingly.
Children's Ombudsman Emily Logan also sought protection for children's rights in the Constitution in her submission, drawn up with the help of children's law expert Geoffrey Shannon.
However, according to Prof William Binchy, some of the sharpness of the restrictions on certain family rights have been blunted by the incorporation into Irish law of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Prof Binchy campaigned against amending the Constitution with regard to divorce.
"European jurisprudence on the rights of unmarried fathers can now be fed into our courts. They can use the convention to assert their entitlements."