have just been getting to grips with this important case now - Ryanair v an Taoiseach (for teaching purposes!).

It's basically about the constitutionality of the government's pandemic travel 'advice'. Two major constitutional arguments here: ... 1

https://www.courts.ie/acc/alfresco/4c363613-d8d4-4813-91ff-ea95c099d390/2020_IEHC_461.pdf/pdf#view=fitH

... first, Ryanair argued that the Government could not issue non legally binding 'advice' but pass it off to the public as law, because that would supplant the constitutional powers of the Oireachtas as the legislature. 2.

... the Court essentially accepted this as correct, but found on the facts that the Government was not trying to pass off non-binding 'advice' as legally binding. 3.

... secondly, Ryanair argued that since the Health Act 1947 gave the Minister for Health a statutory power to intervene concerning infectious diseases, this essentially supplanted any power of the 'executive branch' to issue public health advice outside this statutory process..4

... the Court found that that legislation had no intended to supplant any residual role for the Executive to 'advise' the public in relation to public health, even though in general it was possible for the Oireachtas to supplant formerly executive powers through legislation 5.

This is the correct outcome, I think. I do wonder about a couple of things, though. The judgment doesn't address the ultimate source of the Government's power to advise - i.e. whether it is part of an inherent constitutional power of the executive. However, the judgment does ...6

... continuously refer to the travel advice as an exercise of the Government's 'executive power', whatever its ultimate source or status. It does possibly seem to support the idea of an inchoate free-floating 'executive power', connected with state sovereignty, floated in ...7

.. the Laurentiu case (1999), which suggested controlling borders (effectively) was an inherent executive power in the absence of legislative intervention. I think that such a broad theory of executive power is troubling, but that's another day's work. 8

... I should also says the judgment cites @Caseyco231 's work on that point! 9.