Irish voters will ratify the Lisbon Treaty by more than 55 per cent in a referendum next month, European Affairs Minister Dick Roche said on Monday, despite evidence of falling support for the reform charter.
Europe's plans for an overhaul of its foreign policymaking and internal decision-making rest on Irish voters, who account for less than one per cent of the 27-nation bloc's population, and who rejected the charter in a referendum last year.
"It is difficult but I am convinced there will be a yes vote on this occasion and I will think it will be better than 55 per cent," Mr Roche said in a debate on the treaty hosted by Thomson Reuters.
"I have been up and down the country in discussions with citizens and there is more engagement than previously."
Foreign Minister Micheal Martin said last week that Dublin faced a significant challenge in passing the rerun vote after an opinion poll showed support for the treaty had fallen with just four weeks to go until polling on October2.
Last year Irish voters rejected the treaty due to confusion, a lacklustre official campaign and a fired-up opposition which capitalised on both, putting the government on the back-foot with emotive arguments about abortion, neutrality and taxation.
This time around both side are using Ireland's economic woes to push their case with the no side focusing on workers rights and the yes camp emphasising Ireland's economic reliance on Europe at a time of severe recession.
"The economic circumstance will play two ways. It will be a positive and a negative," Mr Roche said.
"Referenda by their nature are very difficult animals. A referendum in the teeth of the harsh economic gale is certainly a particularly difficult one," he added.
Mr Roche, who was part of the Irish delegation that won concessions from Brussels on key policy areas after the first defeat, including the right to retain an EU commissioner, warned of the consequences of a second rejection.
"I cannot think of a worse time in the history of a European project for it to judder to a halt," he said.
"And what will happen if it does judder to a halt is that we will then have what we always feared, we will have the evolution of a two-tiered Europe."
"You don't have to be Albert Einstein to work out that if a two-tier Europe comes up, small and medium countries such as Ireland will suffer." The treaty has to be ratified by all 27 member states before it can take effect and Eurosceptic Presidents in Poland and the Czech Republic have said they will wait for the Irish vote before signing it into law in their countries.