It remains to be seen, in the light of the foot-and-mouth outbreak, whether the Nice Treaty referendum will be held on May 31st, together with referendums on three unrelated constitutional issues. If the outbreak remains confined to a small area of Co Louth, it may be possible to go ahead. This will be our fifth EU referendum. As Mark Brennock pointed out on this page last Thursday, although all three of the post-accession referendums so far were organised in conjunction either with a European Parliament election or with a referendum on another issue, the turnout in all cases was well below 60 per cent - and the proportion voting against EU treaties also rose from 30.5 per cent in 1986 to 39.6 per cent 11 years later.
At the time of the Single European Act ratification in 1986, a majority of the Supreme Court held that a referendum was constitutionally necessary on that treaty. Governments, concerned at all costs to avoid the setback of a further adverse Supreme Court verdict, have been hypersensitive and have chosen to hold referendums on all subsequent treaties amending those to which we acceded in 1972. Popular rather than parliamentary ratification of treaties is an unusual process in international affairs, and, as became clear at the time of the referendum on the Amsterdam Treaty, it poses considerable problems when the content of such a treaty is complex, and does not centre on a single issue that can be clearly put to the electorate.
No such problem arose with the original Accession Treaty in 1972. The issue of joining or remaining outside the European Community was clear; the national debate was vigorous, and it fully engaged public opinion. The same was true, albeit to a much lesser extent, about the next two referendums. The first of these, the Single European Act, was designed to remove surviving barriers to trade within Europe which were inhibiting the growth of investment and employment here. This was a clear issue that lent itself to popular decision.
The Maastricht Referendum was perhaps more complex, but the key issue it raised, participation in a single currency within an EU area operating a coordinated economic policy, was sufficiently specific.
There was no difficulty in grasping the idea that lower interest rates, and thus faster economic growth, would be the outcome of becoming part of a larger currency area, and although a majority were clearly sceptical at the outset, there was every sign that by the end of the evening they had come around to supporting the single currency idea. This was, indeed, confirmed by the subsequent majority of over two to one in favour of that treaty.
But where a problem arises with popular ratification is where an amending treaty lacks any central thrust, but consists of an incoherent list of bits and pieces, which was the case with the Amsterdam Treaty.
I spoke about that treaty at meetings in various parts of the country. I ploughed laboriously through its many and varied provisions, none of them of any real significance to my listeners, and was left with the impression that they simply couldn't make out why they were required to vote on such technical issues.
The reason that as many as 56 per cent of the voters cast ballots on the Amsterdam Treaty was that 95 per cent of the turnout were coming out to support the Belfast Agreement. Had it not been for this double act, I doubt if even 30 per cent would have bothered to vote.
That 39.6 per cent of those who did expressed a negative view was clearly not because they had found anything wrong with the Amsterdam Treaty - it was, after all, a remarkably inoffensive document - but because they either resented being asked to waste their time on something so technical and, to them, unimportant or else because they suspected there must be something significant hidden there which they were not being told about.
I suspect that the reaction to the Treaty of Nice will be similar. Its provisions in relation to weighted majority voting in the Council of Ministers, for example, are of numbing complexity. Moreover, although the Belfast Agreement referendum persuaded 56 per cent of the electorate to vote in 1997, no similar turnout is likely to be evoked by the Government's strategy of combining the Nice Treaty referendum with votes on three other constitutional issues.
These are:
The deletion of provision for capital punishment from the Constitution (it has long since been abolished by the Oireachtas, and there is little risk of it ever being reintroduced here).
Acceptance of the authority of the International Criminal Court for crimes such as genocide.
The creation of a procedure to deal with misbehaviour by judges.
Few will come out to vote against these new constitutional provisions, but neither will many bother to come out to vote for them.
The danger is that in a low referendum poll a small proportion of the electorate, motivated by the kind of populist rhetoric in which Patricia McKenna engages, might, because of apathy among the vast majority, become a majority that succeeds in blocking the Nice Treaty, thus halting the enlargement of the Union and winning for Ireland the almost universal hostility of Europe, west and east.
We are in enough trouble already with our partners because of Charlie McCreevy's truculence and Mary Harney's imprudent language, without being forced to suffer such an ignominious fate.
Whenever this referendum takes place, all those who favour our continued involvement with the European Union, and who support its enlargement to the east, will need to bestir themselves and cast a vote for Nice.