Ireland's EU Commissioner, Mr David Byrne, conceded yesterday that it was going to be tough campaign to persuade the Irish electorate to vote for the Nice Treaty in a next referendum.
However, he told a press conference that he was cautiously optimistic that a Yes vote could be achieved if he and everyone else worked as hard as possible to get the vote out.
The Commissioner was in Dublin to seek farming support for the treaty and in a hard-hitting address to the national council of the Irish Farmers Association warned that a rejection of the treaty would have a huge negative impact on Ireland.
"I hope the farming community in Ireland bears this in mind when it comes to voting in the referendum. On the occasion of the last referendum, the IFA, courageously, came out in favour of a Yes vote," he said.
"However, there is a suspicion that it was not a very enthusiastic Yes and certainly the survey of the voting record of the farming community bears this out," he said.
"You are of course, not alone in being less than enthusiastic. The mainstream political parties, the major religious denominations, the trade union and business interests collectively failed to muster a decent turnout, much less a resounding Yes," he said.
Mr Byrne said the European institutions, including the Commission, must also shoulder their share of blame in failing to convince the Irish people to vote Yes in what had been a humbling experience all round.
He said the message from the electorate had been received loud and clear. There was apathy, misunderstanding and suspicion but there was also a lot of scare-mongering from the treaty's various opponents.
He then went on to deal with the current negotiations on enlarging the European Union and said it was untrue to say that the same size of Common Agriculture Policy budget would have to be shared among more countries as the current arrangements covering the CAP expire in 2006.
He said the Union member-states opposing the Commission's proposals to phase in direct payments to applicant countries included the UK , the Netherlands, Germany and Sweden, countries who also supported the abolition of milk quotas, direct payments, an end to export refund and the introduction of degressivity, modulation and co-financing.
The Irish Farmers Association president, Mr John Dillon, said the IFA would again be supporting a Yes vote in the referendum.