Sir, - Dervla Murphy (May 25th) regards a question in the recent Irish Times/MRBI poll as "an example of pro-Nice deviousness". The full wording of the question concerned was: "The EU has established the military Rapid Reaction Force for peacekeeping and peace enforcement in the European area.
Do you think that Ireland should negotiate an opt-out from participating in the Rapid Reaction Force?" (Ms Murphy omits the second, balancing response option in her presentation of the question.)
Ms Murphy makes much of the question's reference to "in the European area". While it is true that some military planning documents refer to a 4,000-kilometre range of operations, there has not been any political decision in this regard and the actual debate focuses on intervention in humanitarian crises such as those that arose in the Balkans. The reference in question to the European area reflects this and it is difficult to see how it would have biased the response.
Ms Murphy also challenges the use of the term "peace-making". The treaty of Amsterdam defines the Petersburg Tasks in Article 17(2) as follows: "Questions referred to in this article shall include humanitarian and rescue tasks, peacekeeping tasks, and tasks of combat forces in crises management, including peace-making". Thus, the term peace-making" is the official one. However, it is a much softer term then "peace enforcement" and as such is more likely to elicit a biased (pro-integration) response. The Irish Times/MRBI poll's use of the term "enforcement", far from being deviously pro0Nice, might even be regarded as anti-Nice. In fact, the wording of the poll question was appropriately neutral. - yours etc.,
Paul Gillespie, Foreign Editor, The Irish Times; Richard Sinnott, Department of Politics, UCD, Dublin 4.