Lisbon broke Irish norms with voters divided by class
The survey of who voted and the reasons for their decision threw up several unexpected results, according to EU expert and UCD academic Professor Richard Sinnott.
Support for the treaty was spread equally between urban and rural voters and while the greater number of women voting no was statistically significant, it was not politically so, he said.
Those who voted yes were mostly the highly educated, professionals and senior managers. Those over 55 years of age were also more likely to vote in favour.
In the no camp more than half were not working, were manual workers and were looking after the home. Almost two-thirds of students voted against.
Prof Sinnott, a voter behaviour expert, said that a normal feature of the Irish political landscape is that people do not vote along class lines. Each political party has supporters from across the social spectrum. But the referendum showed that for the first time the vote split along class lines, he said.
But the findings are unlikely to help the Government out of the impasse created by Ireland’s rejection of the treaty by 53.4% to 46.6%.
For instance, most people want to get their information from the Government and depend on the national broadcaster, RTÉ.
But both are constrained by court rulings that says despite the Government having negotiated and agreed the treaty, they must share spending equally on arguments against it when it comes to a referendum. RTÉ radio and television is similarly constrained.
Not understanding the issues was the most popular reason given for voting no, while those who voted yes did so because they believed it was in Ireland’s national interest and because the country had benefited from membership. But other common reasons were fearing it would lead to abortion, euthanasia and gay marriage being legalised in Ireland or losing control over the tax system and neutrality.
Voters departed from supporting their usual political party also, with the exception of Sinn Féin, with 95% of their supporters following the party line.
More than half Green and Labour voters voted no, while 49% of Fine Gael supporters rejected the treaty also.
The analysis coincided with a poll on Irish attitudes to the European Union that showed despite the decisive defeat of the treaty, Irish people remain the most supportive of the union.
However, Prof Sinnott described this support as broad but shallow as almost a quarter of those quizzed failed to answer basic questions about the EU correctly.
There was some good news for the Government and the Dáil, with those who trust them and political parties having increased over the past six months.
There was a slight increase in those that wanted the Irish Government to deal with the issues of agriculture, fisheries, tax and immigration alone rather than with the EU, which reflected some of the no campaign issues.
