The Government will not run the Lisbon Treaty referendum alongside a children's rights referendum following concerns that the two issues could complicate the passage of the European issue.
The Cabinet will discuss the wording of a referendum on the EU treaty when it meets today.
However, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has already conceded that the two cannot be run together, as he originally preferred.
"That might have been his preference originally, but there has been a rethink," a Government source acknowledged last night.
"The consensus now is that the children's referendum would be dealt with at a later stage".
The legislation needed to hold the EU referendum is one of the main pieces of new law included in the Government's legislative programme published yesterday by the Government chief whip, Tom Kitt, for the forthcoming Dáil term.
A decision on the date for the referendum will be made "within a fortnight", which would still allow time for a referendum to be held in late May.
Calling on the Government yesterday to fix a date, Sinn Féin's Mary Lou McDonald said she was "mystified" by the delay.
She said people needed ample time to learn about and engage with the issues.
Some 17 new Bills are to be published - although the terms of many of them have not yet been agreed - during the next Dáil term that will run up to mid-March.
However, the comparative shortage of new legislation for the Oireachtas to process is illustrated by the fact that no legislation of any kind will be debated by the Dáil this week.
Mr Kitt said yesterday: "We enacted a lot of legislation in the last Dáil, managing the programme strategically to ensure all our goals were met, thus enabling us to enter the 30th Dáil without a pre-existing raft of legislation.
"In fact, in the 29th Dáil we enacted 209 Bills. Since this Government came to office on June 14th, 2007, 12 Bills have been enacted.
"As we enter into our second session, this Government is determined to sustain the intense pace of legislative reform of recent years, and intends to introduce progressive and effective legislation that will meet the needs of modern Ireland," said Mr Kitt.
One of the most significant will be the long-awaited and extremely complicated Dublin Transport Authority Bill.
This has the task of overhauling the control of Dublin traffic and its future planning.
The Government will also publish legislation to put the college grants system on a statutory basis, giving vocational education committees awarding rights. EirGrid will also be given statutory powers to build and own the electricity interconnector to the UK.
Meanwhile, RTÉ and independent TV and radio stations will be brought under the regulation of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland.
Fine Gael TD David Stanton said the Government's failure to have legislation ready for debate on the Dáil's first week back was extraordinary.
"The FF/PD/Green Government shut down the Dáil for an unjustifiable six weeks over the Christmas period. Do they really think that after such a massive holiday there is so little legislation to debate?"
A large number of Bills were "piled-up" awaiting passage, he said.
These included ones dealing with nursing home changes and the Student Supports Bill that will alter the third-level grants system.
"It is simply not good enough that Bills have been rushed through and debate 'guillotined' to prevent proper analysis.
"When time is available the Government refuses to use it, and it is to the cost of, not just the national parliament, but every citizen that this is the case," said Mr Stanton.
Labour whip Emmet Stagg said it was unlikely, given recent practice, if the Government would actually produce the legislation it has committed to publish over the course of the next six weeks.
"Nine of the 17 Bills on the list of legislation promised for the next session were also included on the list, published last September, of Bills that were to be published in the last session, including the Dublin Transport Authority Bill."