Academic says referendum debate has yet to engage wider public

THE LISBON Treaty campaign has not yet captured the public's interest and campaigners on both sides will face a very significant challenge in getting people out to vote, a UCD conference on the implications of a global Ireland heard yesterday.

Richard Sinnott, professor of political science at UCD, referred to recent polls which found that many people were confused by the treaty. Earlier this week, Referendum Commission research showed almost two-thirds of people did not understand the treaty.

"As of now, the situation in regard to the understanding of what's at stake in the Lisbon Treaty is worse than it was certainly at the end of the Nice 1 campaign and even more so at the end of the Nice 2 campaign," Prof Sinnott said.

This was worrying, not only for the Yes or No campaigns, but also for the democratic process.

"From a public opinion point of view, this campaign has not started."

Prof Sinnott pointed to research which found that three-quarters of Irish people felt that EU membership was a good thing. "Campaigners who are going out campaigning on a straightforward anti-EU programme are not going to get very far with this kind of public opinion," he said.

However, there was a disconnection between people's attitudes and how they voted, he said. Ireland voted No to Nice at a time when public opinion was highly favourable towards European integration.

Prof Sinnott said the Yes campaign faced an even bigger challenge than the No side because it had to bring the bulk of the population from a position of being generally favourable towards the EU, to a position where they were prepared to go out and vote.

Contrary to popular belief, he said farmers did not vote in great numbers in referendums. The Irish Farmers' Association has warned of a strong No vote to the Lisbon Treaty if its concerns about World Trade Organisation talks are not allayed.

"Farmers and people in rural areas have a much lower level of turnout when it comes to referendums by comparison with the very high level of turnout when they are voting for political parties," Prof Sinnott said.

"Once they get to the polls, they have not voted No. The underlying problem is getting that section of Irish society to be involved in the referendum process in the first place."

Meanwhile, Dan Mulhall, head of the EU division of the Department of Foreign Affairs, said Ireland's position in Europe had shifted since the accession of the east European states. Ireland was no longer "a minnow" in Europe, as there were now seven countries with smaller populations and GDP than this State.

He said the essential goal of the Department of Foreign Affairs was to advance Ireland's values and ask "where does the Irish interest lie?"

Mr Mulhall said there was a sense with the Lisbon Treaty that the European Union wanted to settle its institutional affairs and move on to deal with the real agenda.

He rejected the view that the EU was obsessed with "examining its entrails" and trying to construct the perfect institutional structures. "There is a sense of weariness now and a feeling that it is important to move on and deal with the issues that are clearly facing Europe."

Meanwhile, UCD's Prof Ben Tonra urged that the simplistic division in foreign policy debates between Europhiles and Eurosceptics must be avoided.

"Neither of these two categorisations gives anything like a complete picture of the forces that underpin European policy debates," he said.