Steve Shaw, the law in Ireland is based on the Constitution. No government and no politician and no court has a right to change a law that is set into the Constitution or based on the Constitution. It can only legally be changed by a vote of the people.
The courts can interpret the Constitution, but when something is clearly stated in the Constitution, and is clearly wrong, it must legally be put to the people.
Sorry if you don't like it; that's the way democracy works in Ireland.
Democracy is different in different places. In ancient Athens, after all, only male property-owners had the right to vote. The enormous population of slaves (equivalent in economic and social status to most people who post on Mudcat) had no say, nor had any woman.
The terms 'democracy' and 'democrat' were commonly used as a form of abuse, like, say, 'communist' now, in the 18th century, when American's wild-eyed radicalism horrified civilised Europeans.