Britannia Radio

Lisbon Treaty On The Rocks.

Tom Prendeville

 
A new opinion poll shows that there has been a massive surge in support for the No side, which, if it holds till voting day would result in the Lisbon Treaty being heavily defeated by a margin of 59% NO ‘V’ 41% YES.
 
In one of the largest polls of its kind ever carried out: Gael Poll polled 1,500 respondents in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Waterford, Kilkenny, Galway, Athlone, Tralee, Dundalk and Letterkenny over the course of six days last week.
 
The respondents were asked one single question: How do you intend to vote in the Lisbon Treaty Referendum?
 
A substantial 723 (59 %) said they intended voting No as opposed to 502 (41%) who indicated that they would vote Yes. The survey also showed that 15% percent of voters were still undecided.
 
When pollsters discounted the don't knows: an overwhelming 59% of people would vote No in the referendum as opposed to 41% who indicated that they would vote Yes.
The last Gael Poll which was published in the Irish Sun (June 4th 2008) accurately predicted that the Lisbon Treaty would be defeated by a margin of 54 % for the No side versus 46% for Yes campaigners.
On the day of the count -which took place nine days later- the actual result was 53.4% No and 46.6 % Yes.
The uncanny poll prediction which was out by only a half a percent was the most accurate poll in the country.
 
Pollsters at Gael Poll which is a non-profit social affairs research organization are quietly confident that they will be accurate for a second year in a row:
 
“Our Poll was carried out over an extended six day period and we used the exact same methodology as we used last year. In our experience the vote is not half as fluid as one might believe. People tend to have very definite ideas about which way they intend to vote, and those who don’t know tend not to vote at all,” explains Pollster Paul Murphy.
 
One interesting insight that the pollsters gleaned were the variety of ‘off the radar’ reasons why people intend to vote No:
 
“Frankly a lot of the personalities who are fronting the Yes campaign don’t appear to be very popular and a lot of people have commented upon this.”
 
“Apart from the obvious well known issues, we found that people were very concernd about the curtailment of alternative medicines and the banning of turf cutting to the over preponderance of EU flags and emblems. If you were to boil it down to core emotions, No voters tend to be enraged and up for a fight whereas Yes voters tend to be motivated by economic fears,” explained Paul Murphy. 
 
The results will came as a shock to the Government and business groups who have poured over €10 Million Euros+ campaigning for a yes vote in the Lisbon Treaty. In comparison No campaigners are poorly funded with a total combined spend of just under €1 Million Euros.