The two amendments to the Constitution approved last June have not yet come into force due to a legal challenge by a prisoner who was not allowed to vote in the referendums.
The amendments, to prohibit the death penalty and to allow the Government to ratify the International Criminal Court, have been held up for nearly nine months despite having been approved by almost two to one. They were approved on the same day the Nice Treaty was rejected.
The delay, which has not been publicised up to now, arose after Mr Patrick O'Doherty, then a prisoner in the training unit at Dublin's Mountjoy prison petitioned the High Court seeking to have the provisional referendum certificates set aside. Mr O'Doherty made his application on 52 grounds, the central one being that as a prisoner he had been denied the right to vote.
Ms Justice Carroll granted him leave to make the application, reducing the £5,000 lodgement normally required for such an appeal to a token £1. The application was heard in July by Mr Justice O'Neill, who rejected it.
However, when Mr O'Doherty lodged an appeal to the Supreme Court, the State postponed sending the referendum Bill to the President for signature until the appeal was heard. A date for that has been set for February 14th, and in the meantime the Constitution has not been amended.
Just 34.79 per cent of the electorate turned out to vote in the referendums, the lowest figure in any poll relating to the EU. The Nice Treaty was rejected by 53.87 per cent to 46.13 per cent. The removal of the death penalty from the Constitution was approved by 62.08 per cent with 37.92 against. Ratification of the International Criminal Court was approved by 64.22 per cent with 35.68 per cent against.
Mr O'Doherty was recently released after appealing against the severity of a two-year sentence for tax offences.