Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

——not just yet. I believe that a single-issue referendum would be more divisive than putting this to the people on a day where there are other issues to be decided. I believe that positively as a proposition. Second, I believe it is a good idea to get a representative view of the Irish people, not just the conservative reactionaries on the one hand and the internationalist leftists on the other who would beat each other by 15% to 14% on an unrepresentative poll, as has happened before in Ireland. It is a good idea to get everybody out and to ask the people on the day when they are going to the polling station to express their view. That is the essence of democracy.

I do not believe I could ever engineer a very significant turnout in a single referendum. If I did try to put massive political effort, rhetoric and passion to drive people out to vote "Yes" on some Thursday next October, I would be accused of being obsessed with this issue, of driving this process from an absolute desire to get a "Yes" vote and herding people out of their houses to go down to the polling station——