We haven't had a constitutional referendum in ages. It must be at least a couple of months. Given that they are such wonderful bonding moments for the State, and all we have to look forward to is the row, sorry, referendum, on the EU constitution, I suggest we hold one right now to relieve the tedium, writes Breda O'Brien.
My proposal is that we have a referendum to change the nature of the presidency by having a vice-president.
Those of you paling at the prospect of visionaries such as Dan Quayle, Al Gore and Dick Cheney have the wrong end of the stick. My intention is to reform the presidency, to make each election an occasion of National Reconciliation.
The Americans make the mistake of having their presidents and vice-presidents run on the same platform. Boring. Each dynamic duo for the new-style Irish presidency will have to demonstrate essential incompatibility on major policy issues, to be able to represent truly this great little country of ours.
People who disagree radically on fundamentals yet can amicably open community halls and address the Oireachtas together would end that great scourge of Irish society, divisiveness.
The spectre of divisiveness is raised as the main argument against consultation of the Irish people every time there is an issue of national importance about which we might actually have deeply-held beliefs.
So we could end all divisiveness in our presidency by building division into the process.
Stop looking so lost down there at the back. Let me make it concrete for you. There is a man of this parish who is mad keen on having a presidential election. So I put it up to him to run under my new and improved version of the presidency. Vincent Browne is an ideal candidate. Who better to be his running mate than Dana? She has been around these stormy waters once before and she could show him the ropes. Sure, haven't they been known to sing duets on radio?
As, respectively, an avowed atheist and Ireland's most famous female lay Catholic they would never be stuck for topics of conversation on long-haul flights en-route to comfort the diaspora in Australia.
Vincent could ask Dana all the burning questions he currently reserves for mild-mannered theologians, and they would be delighted to be given a respite. You know the ones he loves, like why does the God of the Old Testament seem to endorse slaying and smiting on a grand scale. Those kind of questions. RTÉ - supporting the arts.
Now, finding Candidates of National Reconciliation in the area of religion is easy. It gets a bit complicated when it comes to politics.
We in Ireland never really bothered our heads that much about ideology. There was a much easier way of categorising who was left-wing and right-wing. We just found out where they stood on abortion, divorce and the Catholic Church, and there was their box all measured up for them.
Except in recent times we started using right-wing and left-wing, just occasionally, mind, the way the rest of the world uses it. So we started noticing who was in favour of taxing the rich, and who was in favour of tax breaks for the rich. Stuff like that is all grand, but it messes up finding Candidates of National Reconciliation in politics.
You could, for example, take Father Seán Healy, and make him the left-wing half of a duo. Except that freedom of information revealed that he is in favour of God in the EU constitution, and that is a dead giveaway that he is actually a right-winger.
On the other hand, there is a man who holds "right-on" views on abortion and divorce, and as far as I know, doesn't give a fiddlers about God in the EU constitution. So could Charlie McCreevy run as the left-wing half of a partnership with Seán Healy?
Who could we twin with Ivana Bacik? She's against the war in Iraq, but warms to the European project. Not unlike the present incumbent in the Vatican, and he is the most notorious right-winger in the universe. But does that ruin the Pope's right-wing credentials or Ivana's left-wing ones?
Perhaps she could renew her citizenship referendum partnership with that other leftie and staunch advocate of Travellers' rights, William Binchy. But that couldn't be right, could it?
Lest you have faint doubts of the wisdom of my scheme, let me labour the positive aspects. No more need to find a mature person capable of rising above personal beliefs in order to represent the entire people.
Even better, no longer would we have the polite lies deemed necessary in politics. The predictable preludes to stabbing someone in the back, such as "my opponent is sincere and committed, but" could be dispensed with. People could be totally up-front. "It is my firm belief that this person's ideas are complete lunacy, which is why she and I are eminently qualified to contest this election together."
Those of you muttering that we already have that with Fianna Fáil and the PDs are just begrudgers.
Presidential elections could be held every year so we could bind up the wounds of every national dispute as it arose. There would always be two smiling candidates, representing totally opposing factions, setting the Áras on fire. Metaphorically speaking, of course. Bonfires on the lawn, and candles in the window and all that.
Take the upcoming referendum on the EU constitution. What about Alan Dukes and Anthony Coughlan? See? I told you. No more divisiveness.
The possibilities are endless. Sister Stan and Michael O'Leary. Aonghus Ó Snodaigh and Ruth Dudley Edwards. Is there time for Conor Cruise and CJ?
Now, there is another possibility, though I grant you it is a great deal less exciting. We could go the traditional route and find a sensible, well-qualified candidate who just happens to have a low-key, capable spouse who works away quietly with no desire for headlines. After all, we did manage like that for the first 60-something years of the presidency. I have heard that Mary Patricia McAleese and Martin are available, but that might only be a wild rumour, and as a sincere and committed columnist, I have never been one for wild notions.