Yesterday's announcement by RTE Television's managing director, Joe Mulholland, that Met Eireann forecasters are to be restored to TV weather bulletins will inevitably be seen as an example of people power forcing the national broadcasting company into a climbdown.
Fair enough. Having whipped up a hurricane of protest, the public - or, more accurately, that section of the public concerned enough to lobby the media - can legitimately take credit for the restoration, albeit a partial one. Welcome to interactive media!
So, though the details remain unclear, it seems that we are to get a mix of professional meteorologists and professional presenters. To the more outraged lobbyists, of course, the new grouping will appear lamentably mongrel; not quite a U-turn on Mulholland's part, more the forced offer of a face-saving draw or stalemate.
Presumably, however, contracts have been signed with the new presenters, so Mulholland, even if he were improbably contemplating a full restoration, may not have as much room to manoeuvre as his most trenchant critics continue to demand.
Still, the proposed mix seems equitable, or at least contains the potential to be equitable, even though there will almost certainly be jockeying to present the most-watched weather bulletins, those screened after the 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. news programmes.
In the climate of these times, however, we might reflect on the fact that people power should aim, and be able, to put the wind up more than RTE's management. Sure, the restoration of Met Eireann presenters has come about because of sustained public pressure. But even the most vehement of weather-lobbyists must realise that, while it's a significant victory for democracy, the public remains comatosely supine in relation to the big picture.
Indeed, given the litany of scandals in politics, business, banking, the church, the legal profession and the media, too, people power ought to be directed at more than weather forecasts on television.
In that sense, the successful public campaign we have witnessed is typical of contemporary single-issue politics.
But people power must fry some much bigger fish if it really is to promote vibrant, interactive democracy and become more than just an occasional, freak heatwave in Irish life.