OPINION/Garret FitzGeraldThe recently-published survey of Irish attitudes to the European Union in the context of last October's referendum has thrown up much interesting information.
Most striking, perhaps, is the very high level of Irish support for the Union. Only in Luxembourg is it more popular than in Ireland, and Ireland has the lowest percentage of people saying they would be very relieved if it was scrapped - only 3 per cent. In the rest of the EU, an average of 11 per cent currently express this view - and in Britain, Sweden and Finland this is the stance of around a quarter of the population.
Moreover, these positive views have existed since the start of the 1990s, with 70 per cent to 80 per cent of Irish people consistently saying that membership is good. Even at the time of the first Nice referendum, over 70 per cent of Irish people retained a favourable attitude to the EU.
This very positive view had developed both in Ireland and in the rest of the Union during the previous decade; but, in contrast to Ireland, elsewhere in Europe enthusiasm waned after 1991. Since then only about half of the European electorate express such a positive view.
It is also of interest that twice as many Irish people are satisfied with the way policies and decisions are made in the EU than are dissatisfied, and rather more people feel themselves to be Irish and European than feel themselves to be Irish only. It is also significant that, except for a brief period during the June 2002 referendum campaign, more Irish people take the view that Ireland should do all that it can to unite fully with the European Union, as against doing all it can to protect its independence from the EU.
On the other hand, twice as many Irish people believe that we should seek to strengthen our neutrality than believe that we should accept limitations on it so as to become more fully involved in European co-operation on foreign and defence policy.
These survey results make it very clear that the fact that in June 2001 only 16 per cent of the electorate came out to vote for the Nice Treaty simply reflected the virtual absence at that time of any political campaign to explain its provisions to the electorate. The doubling of support for the treaty in the second referendum last October reflects, above all, the impact of a serious campaign upon public knowledge of the issues at stake.
There is also reason to believe that very many voters who had abstained in the first referendum were moved by the campaign to vote in favour of the treaty in the second one. There was also a significant shift of June 2001 No voters to the Yes camp last October.
However, because people's recollections of whether or how they voted in any election or referendum are unreliable, it is difficult to get a clear fix on the proportion who thus changed their vote.
For, just as the proportion of people who actually cast their vote on such occasions always turns out much lower than the proportion who in pre-election or pre-referendum polls said they intended to vote, so also the number of people who afterwards claim to have voted is always higher than the number who actually did so.
More specifically, some people like to back a winner retrospectively: in a post-election or post-referendum poll the proportion of those who claim to have voted for the winner tends to be higher than the proportion that actually did so. So, even in the immediate aftermath of a vote, polls do not provide a reliable retrospective picture of who actually voted.
And, given that a poll taken in December 2002 is not a reliable source of voting behaviour on the Nice Treaty in the previous October, it can be taken for certain that this poll cannot be a very satisfactory way to establish how people voted on the first occasion, 16 months earlier.
I understand that the most that can be said about vote-switching between June 2001 and October 2002 is that there are indications from this survey that this may have happened in the case of between one-fifth and two-fifths of No voters in June 2001.
On the ground during the campaign there were, in fact, clear indications, recognised by many campaigners on both sides (although not by some of the less-experienced No campaigners), of just such a uni-directional swing in favour of ratifying the Nice Treaty.
However, despite these defections from the No side, the proportion of the electorate who voted No last October was actually higher by one percentage point than the proportion who had done so in June 2001.
What this clearly suggests is that something between 4 per cent and 8 per cent of the electorate who had abstained in the first referendum in June 2001 were moved, in most cases probably by dissatisfaction with the Government, to cast a protest No vote last October.
It was my own concern that such an anti-Government vote might distort the outcome of this second referendum which particularly encouraged me to campaign personally for ratification, canvassing for Yes votes in the company of Fianna Fáil Ministers such as Brian Cowen, Dermot Ahern and Micheál Martin, and participating in a televised joint press conference with the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, and John Hume.
Of course, it cannot be expected that everyone in Ireland will be fully informed about the European institutions and their activities. It is, however, encouraging that at the end of last October's campaign no less than 93 per cent of those surveyed knew about the European Commission, and three-quarters knew of the Court of Justice and the Council of Ministers.
It is also interesting that knowledge of the EU institutions increased significantly during the campaign - in several cases by as much as one-quarter. Moreover, by the end of the campaign, one-third or more of the electorate had become aware of such new EU developments as the Union's Charter of Human Rights, and almost half had come to know about the convention on a European constitution that is currently meeting in Brussels.
As for the Nice Treaty itself, by the end of the campaign the proportion who felt better informed about it than at the time of the June 2001 referendum had risen by over three-quarters to fully two-thirds of the electorate - and almost three times as many as 16 months earlier also felt they had a good understanding of what the treaty was all about. By any standards, this has to be seen as a successful political campaign, the reporting of which by the media was clearly effective.
But the lesson is clear. Even people favourable to Irish involvement in the European Union will not come out to vote in a referendum on new European developments unless they are told just what are the issues at stake. Politicians and media have a joint responsibility on such occasions, one that had been neglected in June 2001 but which was amply fulfilled last October.