Obviously, those who successfully argued that the referendum on "children's rights" should be separated from the Lisbon Treaty are correct. These matters are mutually incompatible. But there is an equally strong argument that the child-protection issues arising from the striking-down of the law on statutory rape be separated from more general issues of children and the Constitution.
There is a fundamental philosophical split between the objectives being pursued under the two headings. The issues of child protection that arise in the statutory rape context fall within the present philosophical embrace of the Constitution, in that an amendment will most likely tend towards strengthening the hands of parents in protecting their children from sexual exploitation. The underlying principle would hold that children, by reason of immaturity, are incapable of taking full charge of their lives.
The more general "children's rights" agenda derives from a contrary philosophical position and runs counter to the current thinking of the Constitution, insisting children are autonomous beings with full attendant rights to be vindicated by the State, independently of parents.
Self-styled children's groups campaigning under both headings have been concerned that the proposal to split the debate in two - dealing with matters of child protection at the same time as the European vote and postponing the broader questions - would cause the momentum of their "children's rights" agenda to be lost. It now appears that this split will not happen. However, their concern, I suspect, reflects an awareness that, if they were unable to bundle this broader agenda into the Trojan horse of child protection, they would fail.
Since almost everyone is in favour of protecting children from premature sexualisation, it has been assumed that a deft measure to deal with the current child protection lacuna would go through on the nod and that any controversy would focus on more general questions concerning children in the Constitution. This impression may be mistaken.
The age of consent question, for example, is hugely complex, and likely to be just as controversial as the dilution of parental powers.
Last week's controversy concerning a film about the Donegal poet Cathal Ó Searcaigh, reportedly casting a cold eye on his sexual activities in Nepal, has touched on many issues likely to become live in the amendment debate. Whatever may yet be decided about the legality of Mr Ó Searcaigh's behaviour, this murky saga has brought to the surface many ambivalences in cultural attitudes to young people and sex.
Cleary, we have many questions to answer. What, for example, is our intention in providing for an age of consent for sexual activity? If it is to protect children, then is our concern just for our own children or children everywhere?
What, exactly, is it about sexual activity that renders imperative the principle of protecting those under a certain age? On what basis might we decide that a particular age cut-off is appropriate
and should this be absolute?
Is there a difference, and therefore a necessary distinction, between sexual activity involving teenage peers and sexual activity involving a teenager and an older person? Can such a distinction be expressed in a coherent formula? Indeed, can such distinctions be made on the basis of rational analysis and clear principles rather than, for example, distaste for a particular individual's behaviour?
Is it essential to establish clear-cut boundaries, or might there be room for discretion in individual cases?
Is there a moral dimension and how might this be articulated in the Constitution to guide the judiciary in complex cases? Might our concept of morality be reconditioned to embrace questions such as the appropriateness of criminalising young men for behaving in accordance with natural human desires?
Should any latitude be extended to enable 50-year-old men to obtain sexual gratification from teenagers? If not, why not, and where and on what principles might the line be drawn?
Should there be different rules for homosexuals? Why? And perhaps most importantly in the context of the broader "children's rights" agenda, if we believe that children should have personal rights in opposition to the rights of those who rear and provide for them, should these include the right to full expression of their emerging sexuality?
If not, why not? If so, who takes responsibility for the consequences? I have my own views, but will not canvass them today, for now merely pointing up the complexities that separate us from some new consensus. A large part of our dilemma is that we are caught between two tyrannies: the crude Catholic thinking of the past, which translated all but a narrow band of sexual activity as sin; and the extremist cultural reaction to this, which insisted that almost all sexual activity is an expression of freedom.
Between these two poles, our culture is unsure what it believes, and the result is the kind of relativism that results in pillars of society coming forward to suggest that it is alright for 50-year-old men to have sex with 16-year-olds.