The future conduct of the State's most far-reaching relations - between the North and the South of this island, with Britain and with the European Union - are to be brought simultaneously to decision-point with the Government's decision to hold the referendums on the Northern Ireland agreement and the Treaty of Amsterdam on the same day.
In the history of the State there has never been anything like this. It may be administratively suitable so to proceed. It may be politically astute in the sense of getting the vote out. It may be convenient for the political parties advocating a Yes vote to concentrate their energies in this fashion. But it must be questioned whether it is fair to ask the electorate to adjudicate simultaneously on two issues of such extraordinary complexity and importance, irrespective of the undoubted connections between them. Given the astonishingly low levels of public knowledge revealed in opinion polls about the Treaty of Amsterdam it is clear there is a huge information and comprehension deficit to be made up on this subject in a few short weeks. This may, in short, be smart politics, but it looks like bad democracy.
But now that the decision is taken, certain duties devolve clearly on politicians in general and on the Government in particular. They are going to have to get out and explain what is proposed - on both counts - to the people. Neither the McKenna judgment constraining the use of public funding in referendum campaigns nor the setting up of the Referendum Commission absolves them from this elementary political task. In recent years parties in government have become much too reliant on public resources and on public relations for political communication.
This may be one of the chief reasons why there has been such a disturbingly low turnout at recent referendums. There is no substitute for vigorous political argument sustained by partisan commitment - and financing - in mobilising public awareness of issues requiring constitutional change. The Referendum Commission's terms of reference give it an essentially complementary role in providing basic information and fair accounts of the cases made by advocates of Yes and No positions. This whole exercise will test to the limits the presumption that the commission's work should stop short of facilitating and promoting debate itself. There is a clear danger that the campaigns will themselves fall well short of what is needed as a result.
Alongside the extraordinary level of public ignorance about the Treaty of Amsterdam - itself the result of lamentable political communication, allowing for the fact that it is in the main a modest document and despite Ireland's generally favourable attitude towards EU affairs and policies - last week's opinion poll in this newspaper showed a disturbingly low figure of 61 per cent support for amending Articles 2 and 3 in this State. But such a margin of endorsement, while it would be sufficient numerically to achieve the desired constitutional objective, would not be at all sufficient to claim the substantive moral victory that is required, in which the whole community shows its commitment to peace and a renunciation of politically-inspired violence.
The Government must not be content to scrape through on the Northern Ireland agreement. It should be aiming at a substantial endorsement also for the Amsterdam Treaty. But it is going to have to get moving with real dispatch and pull out all the stops to ensure comprehensive awareness, vigorous political debate and a high turnout on May 22nd.