Brian Cowen, the Irish prime minister, was as surprised as anyone to see the huge crowd of young women that greeted him as he stepped off the Fianna Fail battle bus outside the shopping centre in south Dublin on Thursday evening.

But it was quickly apparent, in the throng of summer frocks and tottering heels, that the crowd was there to see the Dublin film premiere of Sex and the City , not the new prime minister canvassing support for a Yes vote in next month's critical referendum on the European Union's Lisbon reform treaty.