The Government now has two unpalatable options, and an unworkable one.
It will, as progressives have done in almost every campaign over the last century, be an effort to guilt the public into voting against the alleged sins of their grandparents and great-grandparents.
The last time a Government lost the co-operation and consent of the Irish people to govern them, it was largely as a result of policing tactics like these, and the injudicious use of its monopoly on the use of force.
It is very likely that over the coming months, the public are going to be confronted with the spectacle of dozens, if not hundreds, of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael candidates for the county council telling voters on the doorsteps and on the local airwaves that their national party leadership is entirely wrong on immigration.
A quick scan of Irish headlines in relation to the deposit return scheme, due to be introduced from February 1st, shows that the Irish media have, predictably, been utterly fawning:
In such circumstances, we must essentially trust twelve people on a jury to get it right
From the Union point of view, a Government is rarely weaker than when it is about to face the electorate.
When they say they would like to combat misinformation, they are saying they would like to regulate what you read, what you watch, what you hear, and what you consume.
These campaigns often come down to who you side with, more than what you side with.
This is the trap in which Ireland’s politicians have caught themselves: They say the country is not full, because they can say nothing else without changing their policy.
The state’s record on father’s rights has been abysmal for years.
Any honest conversation about misinformation would include the basic fact that the greatest purveyors of misinformation in any democracy – not only Irelands – are elected politicians and unelected political actors.