Voters may approve new Lisbon Treaty, poll reveals

[Gnevin]

Poll shows shift in support for Lisbon
watch Sunday, 15 February 2009 21:58

There has been a significant shift in support for the Lisbon Treaty according to the latest opinion poll.

The TNS/mrbi poll, in tomorrow's Irish Times, shows that a new referendum on the Treaty with guarantees on key Irish concerns has the backing of a clear majority of voters.

This latest poll taken among 1,000 voters around the country, suggests the economic crisis has shifted the public mood back into the 'Yes' camp.
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The poll shows that 51% of respondents would vote 'Yes' in a second referendum with commitments for Ireland to keep its EU Commissioner and with legal guarantees on neutrality, abortion and taxation.

This represents an eight point rise on a comparable poll in November. 33% would vote 'No', down six points since November.

The 'Don't Knows' were down two points to 16%.

With the 'Don't Knows' excluded, the poll shows that the 'Yes' vote is 60.7% compared to 46.6%, while the 'No' vote is 39.3% compared to 53.4% in the Referendum last June.

Speaking on tonight's 'The Week in Politics' Minister of State Peter Power said the Government wanted to ensure previous concerns were addressed in advance of new campaign.

But Sinn Féin is still preparing to oppose the Treaty.

Cllr Tomás Sharkey, the party candidate for Europe in the Ireland East constituency said the Government has not secured commitments on key issues such as workers' rights.

[Pangurban]

Panic and the playing on peoples justifiable fears will probably produce a yes vote. Then stand by and watch the rapid privitisation of large areas of public services, particularly those which will be profitable. The tax gurantees will be quickly rolled back in the move towards harmonisation across the union, and there will be no effective means of protest. We have precious little accountability or decision making powers at present, if you think we should have less, vote yes, and your dreams will come true. I am strongly pro-europe, but this is a bad treaty

[Gnevin]

Panic and the playing on peoples justifiable fears will probably produce a yes vote. Then stand by and watch the rapid privitisation of large areas of public services, particularly those which will be profitable. The tax gurantees will be quickly rolled back in the move towards harmonisation across the union, and there will be no effective means of protest. We have precious little accountability or decision making powers at present, if you think we should have less, vote yes, and your dreams will come true. I am strongly pro-europe, but this is a bad treaty

Nothing to do with concessions which have been achieved  on the issues  people said meant most to them?

[Pangurban]

A concession on Tax is meaningless as even the members of the commission concede that a challenge by another state in the europeans courts would probably succeed. As for the other concessions while they would be welcome, they still amount to only vague committments, lets wait until we see the revised draft, before forming a judgement, i suspect they will not fully address concerns. But all this aside, even if all committments are met, this will still be a bad treaty, because of the effect it will have on existing employment law, and its opening of the floodgates to priviatisation of vital services. Were it to be put too a vote of all the people of europe, rather than just the political elites, i am confident it would be resoundingly rejected. At least we have a plebiscite, and we should make it count

[Eoghan Mag]

The Lisbon Treaty is a load of rubbish from start to finish. The Brits are allowed to operate a currency within the European Union that directly affects Ireland, a country that in real money terms, not worthless fictional share values that have been mooted as Ireland being a Celtic Tigar, is 40 years behind any country on the continent in terms of genuine wealth. Yet unlike here the Brits are not being shouted down as being untrue Europeans. The only way the Lisbon Treaty should be passed in Ireland is if the Brits join the Euro. Or better still if we concentrate on unifying Ireland first and tell Europe to take a running jump until that is achieved.

The last referendum was so badly worded and the text of the agreement so badly drawn up that not even the referendum commission could make head nor tail of it when questions were asked. I expect this time exactly the same thing will happen. Has no-one here ever heard of Lamb being dressed up as mutton?

[Zapatista]

The last referendum was so badly worded and the text of the agreement so badly drawn up that not even the referendum commission could make head nor tail of it when questions were asked. I expect this time exactly the same thing will happen. Has no-one here ever heard of Lamb being dressed up as mutton?

It won't be 'lamb dressed up as mutton' it will be mutton dressed as mutton. No wording has changed and no wording will be changed.


GNEVIN do you know what the questions posed in the poll were?

[Gnevin]

The last referendum was so badly worded and the text of the agreement so badly drawn up that not even the referendum commission could make head nor tail of it when questions were asked. I expect this time exactly the same thing will happen. Has no-one here ever heard of Lamb being dressed up as mutton?

It won't be 'lamb dressed up as mutton' it will be mutton dressed as mutton. No wording has changed and no wording will be changed.


GNEVIN do you know what the questions posed in the poll were?

Yes, it was something along the lines of with the guarantees in place for tax,abortion and neutrality would you vote yes on Lisbon.

[Zapatista]

Is it not to early to say then when we haven't seen any guarantees?

Should it not be along the lines of 'if' rather than 'with'?

[Rossfan]

But Sinn Féin is still preparing to oppose the Treaty.

Cllr Tomás Sharkey, the party candidate for Europe in the Ireland East constituency said the Government has not secured commitments on key issues such as workers' rights.

The only rights the BuilderFF Govt was or is interested in are those of Builders/Developers/Bankers/IBEC.
A big difference between now and last May is that last May we believed we were still the envy of Europe and we werent going to let that nasty EU stick their nose into our affairs.
Now that the real world has intervened we know that only for being in the EU and the Euro we'd be like Iceland.

[Zapatista]

But Sinn Féin is still preparing to oppose the Treaty.

Cllr Tomás Sharkey, the party candidate for Europe in the Ireland East constituency said the Government has not secured commitments on key issues such as workers' rights.

The only rights the BuilderFF Govt was or is interested in are those of Builders/Developers/Bankers/IBEC.
A big difference between now and last May is that last May we believed we were still the envy of Europe and we werent going to let that nasty EU stick their nose into our affairs.
Now that the real world has intervened we know that only for being in the EU and the Euro we'd be like Iceland.

The Euro is unrelated to the Lisbon Treaty.

[Rossfan]

Last May we wanted to give the EU the 2 fingers now we're glad to have them and their currency.
Abortion,conscription and a lot of other things had nothing to do with Lisbon but they still influenced people's voting.

[Eoghan Mag]

Zapatista the fact that the issue of the Euro is not even part of the European debate shows how stupid the Lisbon Treaty is. The Euro to me is a far bigger issue and should be addressed long before any other treaty is passed. If I were in Government here I would make this one of the conditions that has to be fixed before we vote on any other European power grabbing agreements.

[Hardy]

only for being in the EU and the Euro we'd be like Iceland.

The Euro is unrelated to the Lisbon Treaty.

Being in the EU is also unrelated to the Lisbon treaty. Roche was babbling this morning that it's more important than ever now to "remain a part of Europe". What can he mean by that? This is not a referendum even on EU membership, never mind a rearrangement of geography. Are they going to tow us into the South Atlantic or something if we give the "wrong" answer again?

[Eoghan Mag]

Hardy the Atlantic would a dangerous place to be at the minute. Did you not hear about the 2 nuclear subs that crashed into each other out there? 

[Hardy]

Yeah - there's a thread about things that scare you. Well a thing that scares me is that submarines are going around packed with nuclear weapons and nuclear reactors and it's only a matter of time before something awful happens. Especially when you learn that they're being driven by clowns who are reversing around in the dark trying to hide from each other, with their detection stuff turned off in case they WOULD see each other and end up crashing into each other in trillions of cubic metres of ocean.

What kind of mad bastards are running the world anyway?