Support for the treaty designed to enable the EU to act more efficiently has halved over the past two years. The Government will have a big task on its hands to persuade people to vote Yes in next year's referendum, according to The Irish Times, TNS mrbi opinion poll.
Just 25 per cent of people say they will vote Yes to the EU Reform Treaty, agreed in Lisbon last month, while 13 per cent intend to vote No and a massive 62 per cent say they don't know or have no opinion. In a comparable poll on the EU Constitutional Treaty in March 2005, 46 per cent said they would vote Yes as against 12 per cent who would vote No and 42 per cent who had no opinion.
Given that the content of the two treaties is almost identical, the sharp drop in support for the treaty indicates that the referendum result could be very close.
Ireland is the only EU state committed to holding a referendum on the reform treaty and a defeat would not just be a serious embarrassment for the Government, it would throw the whole process of EU reform into disarray.
Already anti-EU groups across Europe have indicated that they intend to come to Ireland to campaign for a No vote. The French far-right leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen, is just one of a number of prominent figures who have expressed a desire to get involved in the campaign.
Ireland voted No to the Nice Treaty in 2001 although that decision was reversed in another referendum in 2003 following the insertion of a protocol clarifying the issue of neutrality.
One bit of good news for the Government is that Green Party supporters appear to be strongly in favour of the treaty, with 37 per cent of them in the Yes camp and just 2 per cent against, while 61 per cent are undecided.
The party is engaged in a consultation process with its members on the treaty and the party leadership will be heartened by the backing already being given by its supporters to the Yes side. The poll indicates that the membership will rally behind their leaders if they decide to campaign for a Yes vote.
The Greens led the campaign for a No vote in every referendum going back to the Single European Act in 1987 and a change of sides this time would be a boost to the Yes campaign.
Surprisingly, Fianna Fáil supporters are not as enthusiastic as the Greens about the reform treaty, although PD supporters are the strongest of all on the Government side in its favour.
There are also some surprising attitudes on the Opposition side, with Fine Gael voters, traditionally the most strongly pro-EU of all parties, not as enthusiastic as Labour voters this time around.
The Yes vote is strongest in Dublin, followed closely by the rest of Leinster. Support is considerably lower in Munster while in Connacht Ulster the Yes and No sides are almost evenly divided.
This may be explained by the fact that urban voters are much more likely than rural ones to favour the treaty, reflecting a large degree of disillusionment in the rural community at the trend of EU policy over the past number of years. In class terms, the strongest support for the treaty comes from the better-off ABC1 social category, while men are also more likely to vote Yes.
The poll was carried out last Monday and Tuesday in face-to-face interviews with a representative sample of 1,000 adults in all 43 constituencies across the country.
The key factor across all groups and different party supporters is that there are far more people in the don't know category than in either the Yes or No camp. It indicates that the final outcome is wide open, despite the overwhelming endorsement of the treaty by the major parties and key interest groups.
