When a treaty involves a clearcut issue, and when that issue has significant implications for the sovereignty of the State, it is right that it be put to the people in a referendum.
That was most certainly true of the 1972 referendum on membership of the European Community, which was in fact thoroughly debated up and down the country. Even in small towns and villages 300 or 400 people turned up to hear the case for and against membership argued passionately by politicians and others.
The two subsequent EU treaties, Luxembourg in 1987 and Maastricht in 1990, also lent themselves to popular decision-making, because in both cases there were clear-cut issues to be decided, which could be explained to, and then decided by, the electorate.
However, the two subsequent treaties, Amsterdam and Nice, have been of a rather different character. They have both addressed a multiplicity of issues, no single one of which has emerged as the prime focus for public debate.
And because of the absence of such a single, clear-cut issue on which the voters could focus and then make up their minds, in both these cases this led to a certain sense of public frustration; perhaps subliminally of irritation at being asked to do precisely the kind of job TDs were elected to do, scrutinising and evaluating highly complex legislative provisions.
It should, perhaps, be explained that the need for a referendum in the case of treaties such as Amsterdam and Nice derives from a decision by the opposition in 1972 - a decision at the time that I strongly supported - to seek an amendment to the constitutional provision that had been proposed by the Fianna Fail government that would be designed to ensure that only actions necessitated by the original treaties would be covered by the new accession clause in our Constitution.
In fact, when this more restrictive amendment was proposed, the opposition was not contemplating the possibility of future amending treaties: what the opposition was then concerned with was rather a possible, and in truth somewhat theoretical, danger that a future government might weaken constitutional safeguards of human rights by promoting or permitting European legislation that could impinge on such rights.
The Fianna Fail government of the day, rightly concerned to maximise political support for EU accession in the May 1972 referendum, was content to accept this constraining opposition amendment. That is why, in relation to the Amsterdam Treaty and now the Nice Treaty, the electorate rather than just the Oireachtas is being faced with ratifying complex documents which do not contain provisions significantly impacting on our sovereignty.
In these circumstances there is clearly a danger that many people who favour enlargement of the Community, and who would not wish to see the hopes of a dozen new states dashed by a negative Irish response to this issue, might fail to come out to vote, simply because they have been put off, or confused, by a barrage of conflicting claims about the minutiae of the treaty.
Given the crucial importance of membership to a dozen applicant states, it seems to me the key question people should ask themselves is whether this new treaty contains any provision that would so hugely hurt vital interests of our State as to make it absolutely necessary to vote against it. Nothing said in the course of the current debate by the traditional opponents of Irish EU involvement has even begun to hint at anything approaching a negative effect of this magnitude.
Of course, in order to make room for a dozen new members we, like all the other members, have had to accept a modest dilution of our representation at various levels.
BUT would any of these institutional adjustments justify such a drastic act as the exclusion of 12 applicants from membership? Surely not. In deciding whether there are grounds that would justify making any such evaluation, account must also be taken of the scale of the damage that would be done to Irish interests in the EU if we rejected the Nice Treaty.
Already, for a variety of reasons, some not our fault, we have lost much of the earlier goodwill we enjoyed with many of our EU partners. If we were now to be responsible for preventing or holding up membership of a dozen new members, the anger not only of these applicants but also of our existing EU partners could have lasting negative effects on our standing throughout Europe.
The damage to our interests would be all the greater because some of the objections currently being made to the treaty, e.g. in relation to the Rapid Reaction Force, are unrelated to its actual provisions, and are thus incapable of being remedied by any change in its terms.
The danger now is that if a significant number of voters were to respond to the half-baked slogan "If you don't know, vote NO!", and if at the same time many who support enlargement stayed at home, the referendum might be lost.
In that event the Government would find itself in the impossible situation of being unable to explain the outcome to our partners, or to suggest what might conceivably be done to rectify the exclusion of 12 applicant states.
gfitzgerald@irish-times.ie