So the President, Mrs McAleese, is in trouble for appearing to cross constitutional boundaries. In fairness to her, it could not be said that she has advoca-ted a Yes vote in Nice Take Two on her visit to Greece this week. Nor has she said anything greatly different to what she had been saying, for example, on State visits to Slovenia and Estonia.
To assuage fears in Slovenia following the rejection of Nice Take One, she assured them: "The Irish Government intends that the matter should be resolved in a way which will respect the timetable envisaged for completion of the EU ratification process and will not in any way act as a brake on the enlargement process."
At the University of Tartu in Estonia she looked forward to welcoming Estonia to the "great adventure in respectful partnership and shared prosperity which is the European Union". Cautioning the Estonians that Irish prosperity resulted not just from EU membership but the Irish Government's ability to capitalise on the opportunities offered, she proceeded to outline a dizzying vision of a country which in a single generation had managed to achieve wealth and prosperity.
One can be sure that the parallels were not lost on her Estonian audience. Her speech stopped short of "You , too, can have a boom like ours" but only just.
It would be naive in the extreme to imagine that she might have treated Estonia to a glimpse of unhappy Irish farmers seeing their subsidies and, more importantly, the family farm way of life, disappear. She described the EU as being founded on "parity of esteem which is not determined by size or wealth or population".
She did not highlight that this is a democratic union of peoples where the vast majority of its citizens never get a chance to vote directly on any of its treaties or decisions. Or the fact that while enthusiastic about the markets which enlargement will provide, 11 of the current EU member-states are reserving the right to exclude workers from the acceding states for up to seven years. In short, give us your markets but keep your people at home.
But one cannot blame the President for acting as a conscientious advocate of Government policy. It may come as a surprise to those who remember Mary McAleese, the enthusiastic fundraiser on behalf of Raymond Crotty, as he forced the Government of the day to hold a referendum on the Single European Act.
However, changing one's mind is no sin. The President has obviously found compelling reasons to become a whole-hearted Europhile in recent years. Unfortunately for the Government, many of the rest of us have yet to be convinced.
The complexity and sheer size of the EU makes it very difficult to identify with it. Over the past few weeks I have tried to keep abreast of an initiative which would see Irish taxpayers' money being used to fund activities in other EU countries which are not legal in Ireland. It concerns embryonic stem cell research. This is a deeply contentious issue right across Europe, and as a result, in the past was not financed directly by the EU.
This is due to change when funds for this research are allocated from what is known as the sixth research framework programme. This framework was adopted by the Council of Ministers on June 10th.
However, even though the overall framework has been agreed, the elements of the framework which are known as specific research programmes still have to be passed by the council.
So the possibility of preventing EU funds going to the programme involving embryonic stem cell research still remains.
I would consider myself reasonably tenacious and used to researching material, but at times my brain ached as various people offered me contradictory accounts of what is going on. It is just so difficult to get concrete information. As my husband heard me on the telephone trying to get clarification, at regular intervals he would mutter, "This is a parable of why people feel alienated from the EU."
For what it is worth, when adopting the framework programme, Italy, Germany, Austria, Portugal and Ireland made a declaration that they wanted to insist on specific ethical guidelines on the contentious area of embryo research .
One of the head-hurting bits was when I tried to find out exactly what these ethical guidelines will encompass. I still don't know. If ethical guidelines cannot be agreed, it is possible that another compromise will be worked out, such as a two-year moratorium on such funding, or perhaps even a decision not to fund this research at all.
For those of you still with me, and who care, this translates as meaning that it is still worth your while politely but firmly to lobby Health Minister Micheál Martin to ask him to do all in his power to prevent Irish taxpayers' money being spent on embryonic stem cell research.
Interestingly, a German MEP, Dr Peter Liese, wrote to Commission President Romano Prodi saying there was some disquiet in Ireland that there appeared to be pressure on Ireland from the Commission to agree quietly to funding for this research.
Mr Prodi was at pains to assure him that "Ireland may choose to vote in favour or against any legislative proposal" and this certainly applies to the framework and "the specific programmes that will implement it". So on paper, concerning this issue at least, the Commission is anxious to reassure us that we retain the right to vote No.
What a pity that our own Government does not appear to honour that right in regard to the Nice Treaty. It seems to me that attitudes against Nice Take Two are hardening, if the reaction of the Bank of Ireland shareholders to chairman Laurence Crowley's injunction to vote Yes is anything to go by.
The President may toil in foreign fields to sell the EU dream, but the Government had better start resigning itself to the fact that it has not been sold at home.