MINISTER FOR Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin has welcomed the results of the latest Irish Times/TNS mrbi poll which showed support for the Lisbon Treaty has consolidated.
He also said the Government’s campaign to secure a Yes vote in the second referendum on the treaty later this year would begin in earnest as soon as the June elections were over.
Mr Martin said the poll reflected the overall continuation and consolidation of a trend towards a Yes vote, which he said had been steady since last September.
The poll found that 52 per cent of people would vote yes in the light of the commitment to allow Ireland retain a commissioner along with legal guarantees on Irish concerns about neutrality, abortion and taxation.
Some 29 per cent said they would vote No while the remaining 19 per cent were undecided or did not know.
“I accept that there’s still a high number of ‘don’t knows’,” said Mr Martin. “The real campaign has not yet started.
“The European Council meeting in June at which a legal text will be finalised is also crucial,” he said.
Sinn Féin MEP Mary Lou McDonald said the poll gave no true indication of voters’ intentions as the campaign has not started yet.
Ms McDonald said that no real information has been made public about the changes or the “legal guarantees” that the Government said it has received.
“In the absence of real information, how can people make an informed decision?” she asked.
“The debate on Lisbon two has not even begun yet. I think we all learned last time around that the public mood shifted and changed once people engaged with the issues.”
She said that the Government now wished to portray a situation where defeat of the Lisbon Treaty brought about Ireland’s economic woes.
“The fact is that responsibility for our soaring unemployment and our public finances lies squarely with the Government.
“Undoubtedly there will be those who use the economic recession and depression to browbeat those people into supporting a bad deal,” she said.
A spokesman for Libertas said the poll could not be taken as an indication of what will happen on referendum day.
He said the question was phrased in such as way as to remove all the reasons for voting No in June last year.
“It was a loaded question. At this stage there are not guarantees and we do not know the nature of the guarantees,” he said.
Roger Cole of the Peace and Neutrality Alliance said that the poll showed there would be a Yes vote to the treaty if there was a legal guarantee on neutrality.
He said the alliance had been campaigning for such a legal guarantee since 1996 and therefore welcomed the result of the poll.