Bertie Ahern has been criticised here and elsewhere for his failure to contribute to the debate on abortion in the course of a referendum which is being held at his insistence.
But when he decided to intervene this week it was to use an argument which runs counter to his own assertion that victory for his opponents on Wednesday next would lead to what he describes as "a liberal abortion regime". In an interview on BBC's Newsnight on Thursday Ahern explained that even those opposed to the Government "would only bring in abortion in very, very extreme and very limited and very tight and very regulated circumstances".
Ruairí Quinn immediately claimed that this showed that nothing could be further from the truth than Ahern's assertion that the alternative to the Government's proposals was what he called social abortion. On RTE Derek McDowell said the Taoiseach had blown a hole in the Government's campaign.
But the latest Irish Times/MRBI poll had indeed shown that almost 60 per cent of the electorate believed abortion should be available in this state "in certain circumstances" and almost 10 per cent that it should be available in all circumstances.
Ten years ago, in another poll, the total in favour of some access to abortion amounted to 73 per cent of those questioned. And that included 19 per cent who said that abortion should be available to anyone who wanted it.
But that was in the aftermath of the X case when the electorate's attention was on someone whose experience raised the issue from stark abstraction to personal tragedy.
By the same token it was remarkable this week how the masters of three maternity hospitals who had chosen to call for support of the Government's proposal came to accept the case for abortion in certain circumstances when they were faced by the painful, eloquent testimony of that brave woman, Deirdre de Barra.
So the certainties with which this referendum began have started to crumble. The Catholic bishops and Fianna Fáil had seemed an unbeatable alliance, more so because they had found common ground not in principle but in political convenience.
To get what they really want the bishops would need another referendum. Fianna Fáil would not attempt it in a month of Sundays.
The psychiatrists and obstetricians, initially presented by the Yes campaign as authoritatively and all but unanimously in favour of the Government's proposal, proved to be far from unanimous and in some cases convinced that their special areas of concern were being used to cover political cowardice. For many abortion in certain circumstances seemed preferable to the proposals on offer.
Unfortunately, making abortion available in certain circumstances is not what the referendum is about. And, on the combination of constitutional and legal measures designed to make change as difficult as possible, those who say they intend to vote are almost evenly divided.
In the poll there was a majority of 35-31 in favour of the Government's proposal. But both sides had lost support (Yes down four percentage points; No down three) since the third week of January.
However, nearly one in four say they have yet to make up their minds, and more than 10 per cent say they won't vote. Which completes a neat statistical division: one-third Yes, one-third No and one-third Undecided. Neat but not the whole story.
The undecided (Don't know, won't vote) is the only segment which shows an increase since January. And we must look at two other findings in the poll to discover why this may be so.
On the related matters of understanding and information, the electorate is divided 50-50. One half says it understands some or all of the issues in the referendum, the other that it understands the issues vaguely or not at all.
Then there is the claim of inadequate information, and one of the most disturbing findings of the poll: four in every five of the 1,000 people questioned said they were not sufficiently informed for the important decision they must take on Wednesday next.
The increase in the number of people who remain undecided (up from 20 to 23 per cent) or who say they won't vote (up from 6 to 11 per cent) suggests that, not only will the margin be narrow, but the turnout will be low. Maybe as low as in the Nice referendum. And a Yes vote next week may leave us with as big a mess as the No vote on Nice.