The overwhelming majority of Irish people know little or nothing about the European Constitution agreed under Ireland's EU presidency, according to a new opinion poll.
Despite the role of the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, in forging an EU-wide agreement on the treaty, the poll suggests that 45 per cent of voters have never heard of the treaty.
Some 10 per cent of the public have heard about the constitution and know its contents, while another 45 per cent have heard about the document but know very little about it. While the poll suggests that some 70 per cent of Irish people regard Ireland's EU membership as a "good thing", the high level of ignorance about the constitution led Opposition figures to call for a major Government information campaign.
Fine Gael's foreign affairs spokesman, Mr Bernard Allen, said the Government should work hard to avoid risking a repeat of the first Nice Treaty referendum, which was rejected before being passed in a second poll.
With a referendum likely in the autumn, the Minister of State for Europe, Mr Noel Treacy, conceded that the Government must do more to explain the merits of the treaty before the campaign starts. The Government planned to send a short explanatory document to every home and publish a White Paper on the constitution, he said. "I recognise that more has to be done to explain the constitution to the public and to make its benefits clear."
Mr Treacy was responding to a Eurobarometer poll last November which suggested that less than one-third of the public was in favour of the document.
While a separate poll in October suggested that 61 per cent of Irish people were in favour of "a constitution" for the EU, the November poll suggested that only 28 per cent were in favour of the specific treaty agreed under Ireland's EU presidency.
The November poll of 1,000 adults by TNS/mrbi suggested that 5 per cent of the public were against the treaty, while 67 per cent said they did not know whether they favoured it. The head of the European Commission in Ireland, Mr Peter Doyle, said the poll indicated that a major communications campaign was required to inform the public about the treaty.
While the Commission would not interfere in the referendum, he said it was important that the Government and the political parties made significant effort in such a campaign. "Everybody learned lessons from Nice One. The Government clearly took that on board in Nice Two. The same sort of effort is required this time."
Prof Richard Sinnott of UCD, who conducted an analysis of the results, said the situation was no worse than before the first Nice Treaty referendum.
He said the results underlined the need for the "political classes" to inform voters about the constitution.