The Irish voter is generally supportive of the EU, but poorly informed and hesitant about the proposed constitution, write Fiachra Kennedy and Richard Sinnott.
Even close observers of EU politics may be troubled by an apparent contradiction in Irish people's attitudes to European integration.
A very big majority of the Irish public (77 per cent) think that Ireland's membership of the Union is a "good thing". An overwhelming majority (87 per cent) believe that Ireland has benefited from membership of the Union (Eurobarometer 62.0, Oct-Nov 2004). These proportions, which have been in place since the early 1990s, make the Irish public's attitude to integration one of the most supportive in the Union.
Indeed, the most recent data indicate that a suggestion of a downward trend in these attitudes that began around the time of the first Nice Treaty referendum in 2001 has been reversed.
Despite all this, the Irish public seems to have considerable difficulty when it comes to giving the green light to EU treaty changes. It rejected the Nice Treaty on the first occasion and only passed it on the rerun by a margin that, when account is taken of abstention, was narrow enough (31 per cent Yes, 18 per cent No, and 51 per cent abstention). With a referendum on the new EU Constitution on the horizon, the Irish public seems to be manifesting the same hesitation and uncertainty about its decision.
Part of the explanation of these apparent inconsistencies lies in the qualifications that need to be attached to the picture of large-to-overwhelming majorities of Irish public opinion being in favour of integration. Support does exist but it is of a very general nature and is not deeply rooted. It is accompanied by a very strong sense of national identity and a no-greater-than-average sense of European identity.
People also have concerns about job losses, whether issues of immigration and defence policy are made at national or European level, as well as about potential losses in relation to cultural identity and in relation to the power of small states.
The other part of the explanation for the discrepancy between support for integration and hesitancy about specific constitutional changes has to do with people's knowledge of EU affairs in general and of EU treaty changes in particular. Another recent Eurobarometer survey (Eurobarometer 62.1 conducted in November 2004), which specifically addressed the issue of the draft European Constitution, shows extremely high levels of "don't know" and very low levels of knowledge of the provisions of the constitution.
Twenty-eight per cent of Irish people are "in favour" of the draft constitution with 5 per cent "against". The remaining 67 per cent of Irish people have yet to make up their minds on the issue. The accompanying chart shows that Irish support for the draft constitution is a lot less than it is in most other countries.
Indeed, explicit support for the draft European Constitution in Ireland is almost as low as it is in the UK. The difference between Ireland and the UK is that the UK proportion against the constitution is six times that iIreland. In fact, as well as having a very high level of "don't knows", Ireland has the lowest level of opposition to the constitution of any of the 25 member-states.
In order to assess people's knowledge of the draft constitution, the special Eurobarometer asked six "true or false" questions on the content of the constitution. On each of the six items, the proportion of Irish correct responses was less than the EU25 average.
Only 1 per cent of Irish people answered all six questions about the draft constitution correctly, while 34 per cent were unable to answer any question correctly. Despite the focus on the final negotiations of the text of the draft European Constitution during the Irish presidency, it is evident that Irish people know very little about the specifics of the constitution.
A key factor in all of this is that the greater people's overall knowledge of the draft European Constitution, the more likely they are to be "in favour" of it and the less likely they are to answer "don't know".
Thus, on the one hand, amongst those with a good knowledge of the draft constitution (the 10 per cent of respondents who answered five or six questions correctly), 56 per cent are "in favour" with just 30 per cent having yet to decide.
On the other hand, amongst the one third of the electorate that did not answer any question correctly, only 5 per cent are in favour of the draft constitution and 93 per cent have not decided. It is also important to note that opposition to the constitution also increases as people's knowledge of its specific provisions improves, though at a much lower rate. This reflects the fact that some opponents of the EU treaty are also very well informed.
It must of course be emphasised that, in terms of the Irish ratification process, these are very early days. In some ways, people's lack of knowledge of the specifics is not surprising. There has not yet been a systematic attempt to inform them.
The problem of informing people is compounded by the fact that, for the most part, knowledge in this area is not cumulative. Having learned something about the Treaty of Nice does not help all that much when is comes to the "Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe". At this stage of the game, impending change makes people conscious of their lack of understanding of the issues.
As a study of the first Nice Treaty referendum found, low levels of knowledge and/or lack of confidence in one's knowledge of EU Treaty changes are associated with high levels of abstention in the corresponding EU referendum. Previous experience also shows that low levels of knowledge tend to be associated with voting No.
The recent intervention by the Oireachtas European Affairs Committee was timely in highlighting the need to inform citizens about the issues involved. Widespread favourable attitudes to the European Union in general cannot be taken as indicating a willingness to participate in a referendum, or a willingness to vote Yes. Failure to engage people, to communicate with them and to mobilise them to vote would have serious implications for ratification.
Fiachra Kennedy is a research fellow and Richard Sinnott is director of the Public Opinion and Political Behaviour Research Programme at the Geary Institute, UCD. A copy of their recent report can be accessed through the European Commission Representation in Ireland: http://europa.eu.int/comm/public_opinion/archives/eb/eb62/eb62_ie_nat.pdf