Was the Taoiseach playing the Constitution card for his own political purposes when he wrote in yesterday's Irish Times that the Constitution has no provision for the unilateral suspension of the Belfast Agreement?

Was he trying to present a pannationalist front to bolster his argument that the British government should set aside a few days for consultations between the IRA and Gen de Chastelain rather than plunge the process into a review on the exclusive issue of decommissioning? Was he anticipating that Sinn Fein would not participate in such a review? Or was he invoking the Constitution in a Machiavellian ploy to stave off a challenge in this State by Sinn Fein to the constitutionality of the suspension of the institutions last Friday night?

Mr Ahern was probably doing all these things when he raised constitutional concerns, for the first time, about the Northern Secretary's decision to suspend the Executive, Assembly and other North-South and British-Irish institutions against the wishes of the Government. He was fortifying his case that if the suspension cannot be lifted and the arms issue cannot be resolved definitively "over the coming days", the peace process will plummet into an intractable crisis.

Notwithstanding all of that, however, serious constitutional issues have been raised by the suspension of the institutions. Writing in The Irish Times, the Taoiseach said all parties to the Belfast Agreement had particular concerns and responsibilities they must look to. "For the Irish Government, these include our position as a State with a written constitution. That Constitution has now been amended to include the terms of the British-Irish Agreement, terms which do not expressly include provision for suspension. In that context, suspension raises issues of concern for the Government and any significant extension of it could make the situation more difficult."

In order to examine whether there is any justification for the Taoiseach's concerns, it is necessary to look back at the revolutionary changes to the Constitution overwhelmingly endorsed by almost 95 per cent of voters on May 22nd, 1998. Six amendments to the Constitution were put to the people in the form of one single question on the ballot paper.

Headed "British-Irish Agreement", voters were asked: "Do you agree with the proposals in the 19th Amendment of the Constitution Act, 1998?" The amendments were deliberately formulated in this way to prevent voters from picking and choosing. People had one option - accept the Belfast Agreement, including the changes to the emotive Articles 2 and 3, or reject it.

It was proposed that all of the six amendments would be placed, initially, as new Sections 7 and 8 of Article 29 of the Constitution, dealing with the State's international relations.

Section 7(i) permitted the State to be bound by the British-Irish Agreement.

Section 7(ii) allowed the institutions established under the Belfast Agreement on Good Friday, particularly the North-South Ministerial Council and the implementation bodies, to function with powers devolved from the Dail.

Section 7(iii) provided the Government with the power to make a declaration that the agreement came into effect. The changes in Articles 2 and 3, dropping the territorial claim to the North, and the addition of a new Section 8 to Article 29, could then be made. The new texts of Articles 2 and 3 would be set out here.

Section 7(iv) was the legal mechanism provided to move the new Articles 2 and 3 from their transitory position in Article 29 to replace the then Articles 2 and 3 if the Government certified that the agreement had come into force.

Section 7(v) provided that if the agreement did not enter into force the amendment of Articles 2 and 3 would cease to have effect after 12 months. The Government was empowered to extend this 12 months by law and, because of the slow progress in implementing the agreement, it did so.

Section 8 of Article 29 permitted the State to exercise extra-territorial jurisdiction in accordance with the generally recognised principles of international law.

THE Government subsequently gave effect to the permanent amendment of Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution in a ceremony in Iveagh House the morning after the establishment of the first inclusive all-party government in the North, when Mr David Trimble jumped first and Sinn Fein's two Ministers took their part in the Northern Ireland Executive in early December.

The context in which the Belfast Agreement was so overwhelmingly endorsed by voters is as important as the constitutional changes proposed. The British government was committed to changing Section 75 of the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, the clause which went to the core of Britain's statutory chain of title to the sovereignty of both parts of Ireland, and replacing it with the principle of consent in Northern Ireland.

This proposal was revolutionary in British constitutional terms. Northern Ireland was given a unique status within the UK because, for the first time, the people, rather than parliament, became sovereign and supreme.

The Belfast Agreement established a new legal relationship between Britain, Ireland and Northern Ireland without changing its constitutional status as part of the United Kingdom.

For this reason, the Taoiseach can claim, with justification, that the unilateral suspension of the institutions of the Belfast Agreement by the Northern Secretary, Mr Mandelson, is a cause for constitutional concern.

Leaving aside the amendments to Articles 2 and 3, which are permanent now, there is no expressed provision in the Constitution to provide for the suspension of devolved powers from the North-South Ministerial Council to a group of North-South civil servants. The will of parliament is supreme in the UK, but the British-Irish Agreement, enshrining the Belfast Agreement in the Constitution, was passed by referendum in Ireland.

The will of the people on divorce, for example, was exercised by a tiny margin in a referendum and the government of the day, irrespective of its view, did not have the power to postpone, or suspend, that decision.

The Taoiseach has sound constitutional grounds for concern about the British parliament's decision to suspend the institutions of the Belfast Agreement. At the same time, however, it must be said that the Taoiseach's benign interpretation of the IRA's latest statement to the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning was not envisaged in the 1998 referendum. Voters were led to believe, at the time of the historic referendum, that the IRA was committed to decommissioning its arsenal by May 22nd, 2000. They have only now been informed, by the Taoiseach yesterday, that the de Chastelain commission believes, for the first time, that decommissioning will happen. There is no detail on how, or when.