1 - Progressive Property in Action

Summary

This chapter establishes the benefits of considering progressive property 'in action' through a renewed doctrinal focus, including through paying greater attention to comparative examples, and shows why Irish constitutional property law is a particularly illuminating case-study of the mediation of property rights and social justice through constitutional law. It advocates an approach to constitutional property law that attends to the existence and causes of doctrinal incoherence and inconsistency and is problem-focussed and locally oriented. It further advocates attending closely to the immanent, partial influence of property theory in legal doctrine in order to better understand outcomes and patterns in constitutional property law. It identifies doctrinal analysis as a key means of enriching progressive property scholarship and better equipping it to respond to critiques focused on the destabilising effects of unpredictable contextual decision-making by judges. Laying the foundations for the Irish case-study that follows, it sets out the Irish Constitution's property rights clauses and explains some core principles of Irish constitutional law.