Former French prime minister Michel Rocard once observed of referendums that they represent “a national excitation when everything is put in the pot. A question is asked, people ask themselves other questions, and eventually come and vote for reasons which have nothing to do with the actual question asked”. Referendums as a form of national group therapy, a means of letting off steam, a chance to kick the government ... sound familiar?
But it’s all a bit problematic if you have something important you want approved, something on which citizens’ real wellbeing depends, or on which the economy of the country might hang. Something that really shouldn’t be decided on a whim or become the accidental by-product of a general sense of malaise.
So it makes sense when putting a crucial issue like marriage equality to the voters that a government would also throw in a simultaneous, separate vote on a matter that doesn’t matter, a vent for public frustration that can provide the opportunity for that kick at the government without jeopardising the really important vote.
That is clearly the rationale for the referendum on reducing the age for eligibility for the presidency from 35 to 21. There is no other rational explanation for the decision to put it to voters now. The issue is hardly pressing, or a subject of public demand, or an attempt to redress a manifest injustice against any individual. This is hardly even dipping the toe in much-sought political reform. There are also plenty of other more worthy causes, although their defeat would also matter more.
And indeed the presidential age referendum, this sacrificial lamb, does look as if it will be defeated – 62 to 29 per cent according to the Irish Times Ipsos/MRBI poll this week. That would be a shame. Notwithstanding the dismissal of our young people's maturity and suitability for high office – "the proper place for a 21-year-old is in a nightclub", as opposed, presumably, to a golf course? – there are many who could perform this task with distinction. The likelihood that they would not be elected is neither here nor there.