Analysis: Voters learned a lot about the Nice Treaty during the last referendum, but our knowledge about the EU is still patchy, writesMark Hennessy, Political Correspondent.
Reading Prof Richard Sinnott's exhaustive analysis of the second Nice referendum, the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, will find some grounds for hope but none for complacency.
In the first Nice campaign, just 35 per cent of the electorate bothered to vote: dividing 54 per cent No, 46 per cent Yes. Just one of the 41 constituencies in the State listened to the Government's poorly-orchestrated appeal.
By the time of the second referendum on October 18th, 2002, the Government and the rest of the pro-Nice camp had got their act together. This time, 49.5 per cent turned out, voting 63 per cent Yes, and 37 per cent No.
In his review, Prof Sinnott, whose work was funded by the European Commission office in Dublin, polled 1,200 people in December 2002 to analyse in detail their vote, if any, and the factors that swayed them.
In all, he found that the Government's information campaign, which was far superior to that during the first plebiscite on the treaty, struck a chord with a substantial numbers of voters.
However, the exercise will have to begin from scratch when the voters are faced with the treaty that emerges from the deliberations of the Convention on the Future of Europe.
Though people felt more informed about the Nice Treaty at the end of the campaign, just 8 per cent believes it knows appreciably more about the European Union itself.
"This underlines the need for ongoing debate and an ongoing and effective communication effort dealing with all the issues that arise in the integration process," the UCD academic said.
In the first campaign, 44 per cent of voters claimed they did not vote because they lacked understanding of, and information about, the treaty. Just 26 per cent gave the same excuse after the October referendum.
Asked how the Taoiseach should review his findings, Prof Sinnott said: "I would say, 'A Lot Done, More To Do'. Communication works. Whatever you do, do it right, and you need to keep doing it."
Support for enlargement into central and eastern Europe and the Mediterranean increased sharply, but the upward curve began from January 2002 rather than during the campaign.
After Nice 1, 42 per cent of voters were pro-enlargement. After Nice 2, that number rose to 65 per cent. Opposition remained "more or less stable", rising from just 15 per cent to 17 per cent. The number of "don't knows" fell from 43 per cent to 19 per cent.
However, the public still remains wary of greater EU co-operation on foreign and security issues, regardless of the Seville Declaration and the constitutional bar on Ireland's involvement in a mutual defence pact.
Despite the Government's effort to offer the latter two moves as a panacea to voters' neutrality fears, they "generated, at best, only moderate levels of awareness".
People are inexorably moving into defined camps: the numbers of don't knows fell from 41 per cent to 28 per cent. However, the pro-neutrality camp won eight percentage points of the share, to just three percentage points on the other side.
On the information front, newspaper readers were more likely to vote Yes, though those dependent primarily on television and radio for their coverage were not swayed either way.
Given a more limited brief, the Referendum Commission scored well. In Nice 1, just 30 per cent of voters found its publications "very valuable or somewhat valuable". This figure rose to 45 per cent the second time around.
Equally, the National Forum on Europe, rather elitist in the eyes of many, has grounds for feeling satisfied: nearly 25 per cent of voters found its work valuable, while nearly 50 per cent were at least aware that it was there.
Conversations with friends and colleagues in the pub or at work clearly influenced a significant percentage. Sixty-four per cent said they found such contributions "valuable, or somewhat valuable".
Currently dealing with the Convention on the Future of Europe and the likelihood of another treaty in 2005, the Government will no doubt carefully examine signals that voters are becoming wary of more integration.
Though more than 80 per cent believe EU membership has been good for Ireland, the numbers of those who believe that Ireland's independence should be protected is up 10 per cent since the mid-1990s.