VOTE ANALYSIS:THE "RACE card" did not come up as a factor in the Lisbon Treaty campaign, according to the director of a State-funded watchdog on racism.
Philip Watt of the National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism said he welcomed the fact that no campaigner or group had tried to play the race card during the course of the campaign.
"There was nobody we came across either directly or out of the sides of their mouths using the immigrant argument as a basis to vote No or Yes.
"If it was out there it was under the radar," said Mr Watt.
His comments come after a number of public figures on the Yes side suggested that it may have been one of the factors that came up on the No side.
Former president of the European Parliament Pat Cox suggested that it might have been one of the myriad of factors that motivated people to cast a No vote, along with sectoral interests like farming and fishing.
In outlining the possible reasons to The Irish Times, Mr Cox said: "Some of it is about Lisbon. Some of it is about the state of the economy. Some is on the recent state of politics. To disentangle all that is difficult. "Looking at the different kind of votes in middle class and working class areas, to what extent were there unspoken feelings about immigration and about the labour market issues."
Fine Gael's Leo Varadkar said he had no doubt the race card had been played. "All the way along [immigration] was the elephant in the room that nobody spoke about. Some of the No campaign used xenophobia," he said.
However, prominent campaigners on the No side yesterday said the race or immigration issue had not featured. David Cochrane of Libertas said that it had done private polling asking a range of questions. "On immigration the response was always very low. It did not feature. Nor did it come up on the doors."