The Taoiseach has said he favours introducing legislation to allow the Government to run a comprehensive information campaign before the referendum on the Amsterdam Treaty in spring.
Speaking in Luxembourg at the weekend, he accepted that the information campaign run before the recent referendum on cabinet confidentiality was inadequate.
It was not good enough that the Government was confined to putting the case on either side "on the back of a stamp, and expect the electorate to understand it".
The Supreme Court ruled in the McKenna case in 1996 that the Government could not fund a partisan campaign advocating one side of the argument in a referendum. "So we have to look at what is available to us". His "preliminary view" was that legislation should be introduced to allow the Government to run a proper information campaign.
There is speculation that the judgment could allow the Government to fund advocates of different arguments on a weighted basis.
"We are looking to see what changes we have to make, maybe legislation, maybe administratively," Mr Ahern said. He would "imagine legislation to try to live by the spirit of the Supreme Court cases, so that we will be able to properly fight a campaign and so that we can explain to the people the facts."