It seems rather excessive to spend £750,000 putting forward two sides of an argument about a constitutional referendum when only 18 people in the State felt strongly enough about it to express their opposition in a submission.
Yet this is now what happens when a constitutional amendment is proposed. This follows the McKenna judgment, which found it unconstitutional for the government to spend theoretically unlimited amounts of taxpayers' money promoting one side in a referendum.
As a result the Referendum Commission was established, charged with preparing factual information on referendums and arguments for and against.
But many lawyers are not convinced that this is the only possible interpretation. "The court did not require that," said Dr Michael Forde SC, who represented Ms McKenna. "It only said it should be fair. The solution is to give the other side some money to argue the toss."
Mr Dan Kelleher, of the Referendum Commission, said this posed practical difficulties, like identifying which was a bona fide campaigning organisation opposed to a specific amendment.
However, another senior counsel said it should be possible to distinguish between non-contentious amendments, like this one, and those where people were articulating an opposing view.