Absence of A President
There is no office of Vice President of Ireland. In the event of a premature vacancy a successor must be elected within sixty days. In a vacancy or where the President is unavailable, the duties and functions of the office are carried out by a Presidential Commission, consisting of the Chief Justice, the Ceann Comhairle (speaker) of the Dáil, and the Cathaoirleach (chairperson) of the Seanad. Routine functions, such as signing uncontentious bills into law, have often been fulfilled by the Presidential Commission when the President is abroad on a state visit. The government's power to prevent the President leaving the state is relevant in aligning the diplomatic and legislative calendars.
Technically each president's term of office expires at midnight on the day before the new president's inauguration. Therefore, between midnight and the inauguration the following day the presidential duties and functions are carried out by the Presidential Commission. The constitution also empowers the Council of State, acting by a majority of its members, to "make such provision as to them may seem meet" for the exercise of the duties of the president in any contingency the constitution does not foresee. However, to date, it has never been necessary for the council to take up this role.
Vacancies in the presidency have occurred three times: on the death of Erskine Hamilton Childers in 1974, and on the resignations of Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh in 1976 and Mary Robinson in 1997.
Read more about this topic: President Of Ireland
Famous quotes containing the words absence of, absence and/or president:
“The astonishment of life, is, the absence of any appearance of reconciliation between the theory and the practice of life.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The heart may think it knows better: the senses know that absence blots people out. We really have no absent friends. The friend becomes a traitor by breaking, however unwillingly or sadly, out of our own zone: a hard judgment is passed on him, for all the pleas of the heart.”
—Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973)
“The President has apples on the table
And barefoot servants round him, who adjust
The curtains to a metaphysical t
And the banners of the nation flutter, burst
On the flag-poles in a red-blue dazzle, whack
At the halyards.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)