I thank the Chairman and hope I will be able to make a contribution along the lines he suggests. In thinking about what I might present to the sub-committee, I decided the most useful contribution would be to go over the attitudinal background against which a referendum takes place in Ireland. I will make some European comparisons because they are quite relevant and then I will turn to the evidence from the survey of the Department of Foreign Affairs on what brought about the circumstances of the Lisbon treaty and what we can learn from it on a variety of fronts.
The overhead projector is rather small and it may be difficult to see, especially for Deputies Costello and Creighton. The first slide deals with referenda in Ireland on European issues. This is an unusual but important way of presenting the information. Instead of taking "Yes" and "No" voters as percentages of those who voted, they are taken, along with abstainers, as percentages of the electorate. To understand what happened with the Lisbon referendum one must first look at the first Nice referendum, which saw two thirds of the electorate abstain. By comparing the two figures, 21 and 19, one can see that the proportion of people voting "No" went down between the Amsterdam and Nice referenda. Yet the "No" side won the latter due to the huge rate of abstention.
It is crucial to note that this is not what happened with regard to the Lisbon treaty; turnout went up a fraction and only 47% of the electorate abstained. To appreciate the magnitude of the issues involved it is important to note the big increase in the "No" vote as a proportion of the electorate — it went up ten percentage points. This is something the sub-committee should consider as it differentiates the Lisbon referendum from other referenda. Prior to this, from the Maastricht referendum to the second Nice referendum, there was little movement in the "No" vote. People were inclined to assume that this would continue to be a stable situation. This turned out not to be the case and it contributed significantly to the result. I am here to be as objective as possible but I will say that the achievement of the "No" side was significant. It notched up a notable vote and saw a substantial increase after a substantial stable period.
The background to all of this in the presentation comes under the heading of Irish people's underlying attitudes to European integration. The top line is recognition that the country has benefitted: whatever we are, we are not ungrateful and we recognise the benefits of membership. The line below that is the basic measure of attitudes to the European Union and the question is "Is Ireland's membership of the European Union a good thing, a bad thing or neither?". That question is also asked by the Eurobarometer throughout Europe. It is worth examining the decline across member states in the view that membership is a good thing. This is obviously influenced in part by the accession states but something happened around 1990 or 1991 that started this decline, from which the EU has not recovered. If one were to pick a country in which to hold a referendum one might choose Ireland ahead of a country with support for EU membership that averages support of around 50%. The problem is a referendum also occurred in the Netherlands, which also has a high level of support for membership, and it was rejected.
A qualification should be made to these measures of support. The red line indicates the proportion of people who said they would be very sorry if the EU were scrapped. It is a measure of enthusiasm and there is quite a gap between the proportion saying they think the EU is a good thing and take the pragmatic view on membership, at around 70% or more, and the proportion who are enthusiastic. Arguably enthusiasm is needed to pass referenda. There are two ways to read the meaning of that red line. The question is not always asked by the Eurobarometer so it ends in the presentation at 2003 to 2004. To have this proportion claiming to be enthusiastic and that they would be sorry if the EU were scrapped is not bad. On the other hand, it is an important qualification to the overall level attitudes.
Some further European comparisons are worth bearing in mind. On whether one's future sense of identity is Irish only or Irish and European, the bar chart in the PowerPoint presentation shows that 63% of people in Britain say their future sense of identity involves nationality only, but there is a substantial proportion in Ireland also; therefore, part of our heritage of nationalism or patriotism expresses itself in this form and is an important qualification to the level of support for membership of the European Union.
A second factor that needs to be borne in mind is the question of knowledge of the European Union. This has come up time and again in coverage and discussion of the Lisbon treaty referendum. In this area Ireland is below average on the spectrum between having two correct answers and all correct answers. Ireland lags behind the EU 27 in terms of knowledge of the European Union. Irish people also lag behind the average European in terms of subjective knowledge. There is a range of countries where people have a much higher subjective sense that they know what is going on. That is also an important factor in a referendum context. People are right when they say this is not just a problem for Irish public opinion. The democratic deficit and communication gap with the public is something that we know the European Union is tackling, but it needs to tackle it very seriously both in countries that have referendums and in the majority that do not.
Turning back specifically to the Irish picture, indicated in my PowerPoint presentation is a strong urban-rural pattern in terms of turnout in the 2007 election. There was a lower turnout in certain areas. There was a lower turnout in Limerick East and in Galway. There is a parallel graph of the turnout in the referendum on the Lisbon treaty. In that graph the pattern is gone. It presents a rather unpatterned picture. The reason is what in political science is called drop-off, that is, voting in one election and not in the following referendum or local elections. In America, for example, people vote in the Presidential election and not in the mid-term elections. There is a definite pattern here. The darker the shading the greater the drop-off in voting between the 2007 elections and the referendum on the Lisbon treaty. There is an east-west or an east and south coastal pattern, but the drop-off was lower in Dublin and areas which are the hinterland of Dublin. Apart from Galway West, the drop-off was much heavier along the western seaboard and part of the midlands; therefore, there is an urban-rural distinction that is the opposite of what it is in general elections. Again, that is something that needs to be taken into account.
I will enter into what is called a multivariate analysis on a number of occasions but will keep it as brief as possible. There is a range of variables to examine to see what effect they have on the drop-off in voting in the referendum. The big factor is that the proportion of farmers in a constituency is closely associated with greater drop-off from a general election to a referendum. This is not the first time that has happened. I am not saying it is the farmers, but it is farmers as a proxy for more rural constituencies. I will come back to this at the end but it is definitely a factor.
The Labour Party managed to reduce the rate of drop-off on the basis of this analysis of constituency level results. That is probably the major inference to be drawn from it.
I refer to a PowerPoint presentation of a map of the "No" vote in the Lisbon treaty referendum. I will leave Galway aside as an area with a distinctly heavier "No" vote. Presumably because Laois-Offaly is the Taoiseach's constituency, in south County Dublin or Dublin South and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown or the constituency of Dún Laoghaire, there is a pattern which, again, can be analysed with the same statistical technique and it shows a substantial working-class effect that we need to take into account if we are to understand the nature of what happened in the Lisbon treaty referendum. Without any survey, Government study or Eurobarometer polls, we would know definitely that there was a contrast in attitude to this referendum between middle-class and working-class voters, to which I will return.
The other factor is that Fianna Fáil contributed to lowering the "No" vote, that is, it contributed to increasing the "Yes" vote, and that Sinn Féin contributed to increasing the "No" vote. They are the only party contributions that come through in an analysis of the constituencies. Here we have the same relationship we noted. It is occupational class, except now we are looking at individual level data. There is a big contrast between the 64% voting "Yes" in the professional and managerial class, what is referred to by market researchers as the A-B class, down to the figures of 35% and 37% in what is broadly described as the working class. There is a confirmation at the individual level of this class contrast. The farmer column shows relatively little difference.
Why did those who abstained abstain? Why did people vote "No"? One way of finding out — it may seem odd to say this — is to ask them. Pollsters are sometimes wary of data such as these but it is the starting point. One simply puts the question in an open-ended way as to why the person did not vote or why they had voted "Yes" or "No". Comparing Nice I and Nice II and the Lisbon treaty referendum, one finds that the results for the Lisbon treaty are much closer to those for Nice I in terms of the reasons people abstained than in the case of Nice II. There is a big contrast between the two outer referendums, as it were, Nice I and the Lisbon treaty, and Nice II.
There is a similar contrast when one looks at the reasons for voting "No". The proportions are 39% in respect of Nice I and 42% in the case of the Lisbon treaty. To all intents and purposes, these are identical. Some 14% cited a lack of information as a reason in the case of Nice II. There was something distinctly different about the Nice II referendum. The step beyond the subjective account of why a person had voted "No" or "Yes" or abstained is to look at people's characteristics. An opinion poll allows one to know how and whether people voted but it also allows one to gather a lot more information about their attitude, social characteristics, etc. which can be matched. This provides information on the nature of a particular voting decision.
I refer also to the gender factor, which is small. However, it has been talked about as if it were substantial; no doubt in certain sub-categories of the population it may come across more strongly. There is a male-female contrast but it is barely statistically significant. On age, the differences are also small, although one suspects further analysis will lead to a bigger estimate of the age effect. There is not a huge difference. The over-65s are the most favourable. The 20-somethings and those in their early 30s seem to be the least favourable but the differences are not big of the sort evident when one studies people's identity. For people who said "Irish only", 32% voted "Yes"; for people who said "Irish and European", 55% voted "Yes". That factor we considered earlier is an important one.
In attitudes to neutrality, there is large difference between the proportion of people who say Ireland should do everything it can to strengthen its neutrality versus those who say it should accept limitations on its neutrality. There is a range from a 23% "Yes" vote to a 68% "Yes" vote. These are factors that were in the minds of people and influencing them.
In attitudes to immigration there is a similar span with pro-immigration and anti-immigration aspects. On the question of whether Ireland has become a better place to live with immigration, there is sharp contrast between the "Yes" and the "No" votes. The "No" vote ranges from 30% to 85% and an inverse pattern can be noted with the "Yes" vote.
We also need to examine people's subject of knowledge. Those who said they had a good understanding of what the treaty was about were 60% likely to vote "Yes". Those who said they did not know what it was about at all were 23% likely to vote "Yes".
Does this knowledge matter? If we look at a 2005 Eurobarometer survey, of those with little knowledge of the treaty, 36% were likely to believe their country's membership of Europe was a good thing, compared to 62% of those who had very good knowledge. As a colleague of mine put it in the title to an article, "To know it is to love it." There is certainly a relationship between knowledge of the European Union and positive attitudes towards it.
In the Irish aspect of this survey, of those with little knowledge, 58% were likely to believe their country's membership of Europe was a good thing compared to 81% of those who had very good knowledge. When this is compared to the Lisbon treaty "Yes" vote, it works out as those with little knowledge of the EU, 28%, compared to 63% of those who had very good knowledge. Knowledge is crucial in itself and the attitudes the people have. Knowledge is also problematic and, particularly in a referendum context, can easily go astray.
In the survey questions were asked about eleven items contained, or perceived to be contained, in the Lisbon treaty. Up to 65% believed the loss of an Irish Commissioner for five out of every 15 years was part of the treaty. At the other end of the scale, 33% believed conscription to a European army was part of the treaty. In between, the questions centred on various items that were in the treaty or perceived to be in it. The perception could be accurate, misled or misinformed. Regarding those who believed the loss of the Commissioner was in the treaty, 48% voted "Yes" versus 51% who voted "Yes" among those who said it was not in the treaty. In other words, there was no relationship between that perception and voting outcome. This is because many decided that even though they did not like this aspect of the treaty, it was part of the deal or a compromise and that they would vote "Yes". That is what accounts for there being no difference between people's perceptions and their voting decisions in that regard. However, among those who said conscription was provided for in the treaty, 33% voted "Yes" and 68% voted "No", while among those who did not see conscription as being provided for in the treaty it was the opposite — 61% voted "Yes" and 39% voted "No". Thus, these perceptions which take hold in the public mind to the extent that 33% of people thought the treaty provided for conscription to a European army can be very closely related to the outcome. I choose the words "closely related" for a reason to which I will return.
Among those who said the treaty involved an end to control over abortion policy, 67% voted "No", while among those who said it did not, 64% voted "Yes". On the issue of our right to decide our own corporation tax rate, the relationship was not as strong. Those who said the treaty did affect it voted "No", while those who thought it did not more strongly voted "Yes". On the erosion of Irish neutrality, there was a similar pattern, if somewhat stronger. Among those who said the treaty would erode Irish neutrality, only 33% voted "Yes", while 67% voted "No". The other side was an exact mirror image of this. Interestingly, in terms of the work of the sub-committee, there was also a relationship between people's beliefs that the treaty involved the strengthening of the European Parliament in EU decision making and whether they voted "Yes" or "No". Among those who saw this as being a provision of the treaty, 56% voted "Yes", while among those who were not persuaded that this was an element of the treaty, 38% voted "No".
With all that information, there is a sense of information overload. What we need to do, on which we are still working, is what is called a multivariate analysis which tries to bring all these variables into one framework of explanation, known as a model. In this way we can control for the effects of all the other variables and thus identify the real contribution of any particular variable in which one is interested. We are working on this multivariate analysis. However — I was thinking as I was coming in how I would put this — multivariate analysis is a little like conflict negotiation. There is an implicit rule that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. Another metaphor one can use is that it is like building an arch out of stone; the arch is nothing until the capstone is put in place. It is a process that is still under way.
One of the main things that comes across in the analysis we have done so far is the role of knowledge in the whole process — not just that knowledge was important but that it had a large bearing on whether people turned out to vote and also how they voted. I will take a brief look at the channels of communication because that is something that is directly related to the level of knowledge people end up with. Again, we have a contrast between the Lisbon and Nice treaty referendums. In the illustration the red bar represents Nice I, the green bar, Nice II and the blue bar, the Lisbon treaty. The bars represent the degree to which voters said they had found any particular source of information helpful in making up their minds how to vote. These include TV news and current affairs, radio news, newspaper articles and discussion with family and friends. These are the main channels of communication in a referendum. There are other items such as the Government summary or White Paper, Referendum Commission publications, the National Forum on Europe, leaflets and brochures, Internet websites and posters in public places. However, they are all secondary to an interactive debate between the public and political leaders and campaigners which is reflected in television, radio and newspaper coverage and, very importantly, the degree to which voters tune in to this by discussing matters with family and friends. It should be noted that the red bars in the presentation are quite low. It was not a satisfactory referendum process in the case of Nice I. In the case of Nice II, the process was more satisfactory, as represented in the green bars. In the case of the Lisbon treaty, it fell back to almost halfway between the two Nice treaty referendum results. There was something less satisfactory about the Lisbon treaty referendum but it was not as bad as the Nice I referendum from the voters' point of view.
There is a strong difference between the publications of the Referendum Commission. They were unfavourably evaluated in the case of Nice I, quite favourably evaluated in the case of Nice II but unfavourably evaluated in the case of the Lisbon treaty referendum. The associated figures are 45, 30 and 31.
My last slide illustrates what we are doing with the data, over and above what I have presented. There is a multivariate analysis of voter drop-off. This examines individual evidence rather than constituency evidence. The dots on the horizontal bar chart are the estimates of the impact of variables on whether voters in a general election dropped out of voting in the referendum. The numbers to the right of the chart are major factors affecting voter drop-off. Two are outstanding, one of which is the age profile of 18-24 years. This is not a general phenomenon because these are young voters who voted in the general election but not in the referendum. This is a major contribution to the lowering of participation. The other contribution is the lack of objective knowledge of the treaty. If people felt that way, even if they were regular voters, they were more likely not to vote in the referendum. The knowledge factor affected two matters — participation versus abstention and "Yes" versus "No". Other factors are that farmers and those living in rural areas are less likely to vote in a referendum. Abstention is not limited to the 18-24 year category, it is also evident in the 25-34 age group. The other variables are less significant. The implications are that knowledge and understanding are crucial factors. This suggests there should be a process of long-term education, discussion and communication strategies in increasing understanding, whichever way people will vote. It would be better if they were voting "No" on a basis of a thorough understanding and knowledge rather than voting "No" because they did not know.
There is a long-term campaign need. It is a mistake to approach a referendum by analogy to a general election, whereby one names the referendum date and, while it is not as short as a general election campaign, it is quite short. In order for people to come to grips with the issues involved, a long campaign is essential. The counter argument is that people would be bored but at least they would be bored in an informed way. Perhaps aspects of the European Union are boring, something with which we must live. The crucial aspect is that people should be informed about the basic framework, institutions and processes of the European Union. There was something about the formula, presumably on both sides of the campaign because it takes two to make an argument, which was more satisfactory in the case of Nice II than it was for the Nice treaty or the Lisbon treaty. I am not equipped to tell members what that was but it is clear from the evidence.
It is evident from the range of evidence that the experience has put Ireland at the front line of something fundamental to the success of the European Union, namely, an engagement between the Union and the people of Europe. Bringing the European Union closer to the people may become very uncomfortable at times but is both necessary and something to which the Union is, as a whole, strongly committed. I thank the Chairman for his indulgence.
