PERHAPS ONE of the most interesting features of the latest Irish Times /TNSmrbi poll on attitudes to the Lisbon Treaty is the doubling in a year, from 9 to 18 per cent, in the number of those who say that it would be better not to be part of the European Union. Forty-three per cent of No supporters are of this view.

Although most No campaigners, from Declan Ganley to Joe Higgins, profess to be strong supporters of the idea of a European union, albeit very different models, one result of their campaign has in fact been to push very significant numbers into the ranks of outright Euroscepticism. In the face of such a reality those making the case for Lisbon have again found it necessary to go back to basics to remind voters of the case for EU membership itself.

The treaty defines the nature of our membership and of our relationship with our partners in what has been and remains for this State an enormously important and beneficial common project. The EU has helped to lay the basis of our economic and social transformation and has brought down barriers across a continent, opening extraordinary opportunities for travel and education of our young and for business. It has provided an international platform for Ireland to find its "place among the nations", to establish a separate identity from the British, and in the process has contributed significantly to peace on this island. In the wake of a century marked by Europe's bloodiest wars, it seems extraordinary to have to restate that the EU provides a unique, first-of-its-kind, democratic model for peaceful reconciliation, balancing the interests of sovereign nations large and small, an important counterweight economically and politically to great power rivalry.