The Government simply wants to avoid an unending series of demands for referendums as each and every incremental or procedural change in the functioning of the EU is agreed – and to avoid constitutional challenges from individuals, pressure groups or politcial factions.

This whole thing is rapidly descending in to a farce, but I suspect that most voters have little interest in what are seen as boring constitutional issues – and the Government is getting away, for the moment, with its silly games.

We are going to have a Constitutional Convention, which was sold initially on the basis that it would do the ‘divil and all’ but will now consider only a handful of largely peripheral issues. In any event it will have no credibility, authority or standing. The second House of the Oireachtas is going to be abolished without any proper procedural evaluation of the options or implications. And now we have this further raft of constitutional amendments.

The Government lost the Oireachtas inquiries amendment referendum – which would have been only a first, very limited step in separating and re-balancing the powers of the legislature and the executive. But, understandably, it has no stomach for a programme of reform of this nature – unless some naked politcial advantage might be secured – and so we are left with these silly games.

It may take a while for a sufficient number of voters to wake up to what is going on, but they will eventually.