Holy Communion Services without a Priest

One of the vexing questions facing us here in Ireland is how we should cope with the increasingly severe shortage of priests. Of course, relative to much of the world, there's still an abundance of priests in Ireland - and maybe the past has spoiled us in terms of our expectations, but what is clear is that many Irish parishes will be losing priests at a very rapid rate over the next few years.
One consequence of this is that communities will find the number of Masses celebrated on weekdays and on Sundays cut back. Should these simply be dropped or should they be replaced by lay- or deacon-led services? If they are replaced, what form should these services take and should they include distribution of Holy Communion?

There's been a lot of muddled thinking about this issue, and I think that there are a number of points which should be made clear. Firstly, the absence of the celebration of Mass in one's local church doesn't necessarily dispense one from one's serious obligation to attend Mass on a Sunday or Holyday of Obligation. If one can travel to another nearby church for Mass, one should, and it would be a very worthwhile thing for people to assist their elderly neighbours and all others who have difficulty making it to Mass. Consequently, we should be extremely cautious about replacing our Sunday Masses with other forms of service when it is practicable for the faithful to travel to nearby churches. Redemptionis Sacramentum is very clear that this is the preferred way of dealing with this situation:

Therefore when it is difficult to have the celebration of Mass on a Sunday in a parish church or in another community of Christ’s faithful, the diocesan Bishop together with his Priests should consider appropriate remedies. Among such solutions will be that other Priests be called upon for this purpose, or that the faithful transfer to a church in a nearby place so as to participate in the Eucharistic mystery there.

However, circumstances may arise where Sunday celebrations in the absence of a priest may be appropriate. It should be noted that the distribution of Holy Communion need not be part of such a celebration. Obviously one would have to take into account how long the community would be deprived of Holy Communion in such a case.
It's worth noting that the guidance of Redemptionis Sacramentum very much frowns on weekday services where Holy Communion is distributed outside the context of the Mass:

Likewise, especially if Holy Communion is distributed during such celebrations, the diocesan Bishop, to whose exclusive competence this matter pertains, must not easily grant permission for such celebrations to be held on weekdays, especially in places where it was possible or would be possible to have the celebration of Mass on the preceding or the following Sunday.

I note that there has been a certain amount of press coverage given to a priest who, whilst on holidays, arranged for a lay-led service with the distribution of Holy Communion. That would seem to be contrary to the liturgical guidelines, and in my opinion, a bad idea.

One of the sad things one encounters pastorally is the lack of understanding of the Holy Mass. The separation of the distribution of Holy Communion from the Mass inevitably increases this confusion. Anecdotally, I've heard of situations on the Continent where parish communities have refused the offer of holidaying priests to celebrate a Sunday Mass for them because they like the 'Mass' (sic) celebrated by their local lay pastoral worker. To my mind, it's incredibly sad that a community deprived of the Mass due to a shortage of priests would refuse the opportunity to participate in the Eucharist when it is offered to them. The personality of the lay pastoral worker or the community's own self-regard has displaced Christ as the focus of their worship.

One of the central advances in liturgical and sacramental theology of the past century or so is the re-connection of the participation in the Mass with the reception of Holy Communion. It might surprise modern readers to learn that until the early 20th century Masses were frequently celebrated without the distribution of communion to the lay faithful, and the reception of communion often happened in a ceremony separate from the Mass. One of my professors in Rome told me of a convent which had the following custom on the eve of the Second Vatican Council. The nuns would receive Holy Communion outside the context of the Mass, and then attend Mass as their thanksgiving for Holy Communion. This, of course, ran totally contrary to the teaching of the Popes from St Pius X onwards who encouraged frequent communion in the context of attending and participating in the Mass.
Now it seems we have another problem - people equate going to Mass with the right to receive Holy Communion. It's becoming increasingly difficult to explain to people why they might attend Mass when they are not in a situation where they could receive Holy Communion. The celebration of the Mass seems to have become subordinated to the reception of communion. Divorcing the distribution of Communion from the Mass would only increase this confusion.
I was recently re-reading Dom Ansgar Vonier's 1925 classic A Key to the Doctrine of the Eucharist and found that the following passage inadvertently prescient:

There ought not to be in classical Christianity a real division of spiritual attitude between Mass and Communion. Suppose per impossible, that there were an extreme multiplicity of private communions by the faithful on the one hand, and an ever-dwindling attendance at the sacrifice of the Mass on the other hand, it would indeed be the gravest spiritual disorder; it would falsify the Eucharistic setting; it would lower the sacrament through a misconception of its true role.