Девятнадцатая поправка к Конституции Ирландии и Белфастское соглашение

Permitted the State to sign the Good Friday Agreement

The Nineteenth Amendment of the Constitution is an amendment of the Constitution of Ireland which permitted the state to be bound by the British–Irish Agreement (the bilateral portion of the Good Friday Agreement) and enabled the establishment of shared political institutions between Ireland and Northern Ireland. It also provided a mechanism for a further amendment to the Constitution upon a declaration by the government on the implementation of the Agreement, most notably by changing Articles 2 and 3 from the previous claim over the whole island of Ireland to an aspiration towards creating a united Ireland by peaceful means, "with the consent of a majority of the people, democratically expressed, in both jurisdictions in the island". The amendment was effected by the Nineteenth Amendment of the Constitution Act 1998 (previously bill no. 24 of 1998) which was approved by referendum on 22 May 1998 and signed into law on 3 June of the same year. The referendum was held on the same day as a Northern Ireland referendum on the Good Friday Agreement and a second referendum in the Republic of Ireland to ratify of the Amsterdam Treaty. The Government declaration envisaged by the Nineteenth Amendment was made on 2 December 1999, bringing the changes to Articles 2 and 3 and certain other parts of the constitution into effect.

The Good Friday Agreement in 1998 was a culmination of the Northern Ireland peace process. The agreement acknowledged nationalism and unionism as "equally legitimate, political aspirations". It comprised two agreements: the Multi Party Agreement, between the parties of Northern Ireland; and the British Irish Agreement, between the government of Ireland and the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The Constitution needed to be amended to allow the Irish state to be bound by its provisions. The government of Ireland also agreed to amend Articles 2 and 3; however, these changes would only take effect if the government were satisfied that it could make a declaration that the Agreement had taken effect. These changes would remove the claim of the state to the whole island of Ireland, while also providing a mechanism for a poll on a united Ireland. The government of the United Kingdom agreed changes to legislation, which were to be provided in the Northern Ireland Act 1998, for a border poll on the status of Northern Ireland.

The Nineteenth Amendment added the text below as Article 29.7 to the constitution. Subsection 3° provides the detail of the amendments to be made to the text and are detailed further below. The text of subsections 3°, 4° and 5°, shown here in italics, are omitted from the published text of the Constitution.

A lay litigant named Denis Riordan launched a High Court challenge to the bill the week before the referendum. He claimed the bill was invalid because it purported to allow a mechanism to amend the Constitution by government declaration rather than by referendum. The court rejected the challenge on the grounds that the initial amendment would be by referendum and that by separation of powers the courts could not interfere in the legislative process.