Voter surveys by both major parties indicate European Union reform treaty may win approval of Ireland

This article is more than 11 years old

This article is more than 11 years old

Ireland is on course to ratify the Lisbon treaty, with early tallies showing a strong surge for a yes vote this morning.

The outcome of yesterday's referendum, which will be known later today, is set to put the European Union reform project back on track.

As early as 9.30am at the ballot count in Dublin's RDS centre, tallies were showing constituencies across the Irish capital voting 2 to 1 in favour of the treaty.

One prominent opponent, Richard Green from the Coir movement, accepted that the vote was moving in favour of yes.

Green said the expected yes vote was "a bad day for Irish workers and a good day for big business". He and his pressure group have been arguing that endorsing Lisbon would lead to a greater influx of cheap foreign labour to Ireland.

In June 2008, 53.4% of the Irish Republic voted down the Lisbon treaty and threw the entire EU project into chaos. Today many constituencies in Dublin – Ireland's key electoral battleground – which voted against the treaty 17 months ago appeared to be switching to the yes camp.

Tally returns from Dublin Mid West showed that 65% of the constituency had voted yes this time. In the 2008 poll a majority voted no.

Even in Cavan/Monaghan, a stronghold for Sinn Féin which was the only party in the Irish parliament to call for a no vote, 61% were in the yes camp.

The Republic's main opposition party, Fine Gael, said the tally returns backed up the party's private exit poll which was released last night and indicated support for Lisbon running between 55% to 60%.

Fine Gael had polled a sample of 1,000 voters in 33 locations around Ireland. The party's director of elections, Billy Timmons, said the results were good for the yes camp.

Ireland's foreign minister, Michael Martin, said the yes vote would be a boost for the Republic.

"I am delighted for the country. It looks like a convincing win for the yes side on this occasion," Martin said.

Irish government sources said that at present the vote appeared to be around 57% in favour of Lisbon and 33% against.

The result will also be a boost to Brian Cowen, Ireland's embattled taoiseach. Cowen became the Irish leader in May 2008, just one month before Ireland decisively rejected Lisbon in the first referendum. Since then his government's popularity has plunged to an historic low in the opinion polls due to the recession, the country's banking crisis and rising unemployment.

"This is Brian Cowen's first victory as taoiseach," one Irish government adviser said today. "This is Brian's first break since he took up office."

The treaty is a 2007 reform package designed to modernise EU institutions and decision-making in line with the bloc's rapid expansion eastward. It cannot become law unless all members ratify it, and Ireland is the only one subjecting it to a national vote.

If the Irish endorse the treaty this time, the turnaround would reflect both incentives from Brussels and Ireland's economic tailspin.

Following last year's vote, European leaders offered Ireland reassurances and concessions designed to undercut the anti-EU arguments of treaty opponents.

They reversed a plan that would have cost Ireland its automatic seat on the European commission, a particular vote-loser, and pledged no EU interference in the country's tax rates, military commitments and abortion ban. Some voters said those commitments persuaded them to switch their vote to a yes.

Ireland's current economic crisis has underscored the country's dependence on European goodwill when times are bad.

The prime minister, Brian Cowen, and opposition chiefs argued to wavering voters that the nation could not afford to be seen as anti-EU when the European Central Bank was underwriting a planned €54bn (£49.4bn) bailout of Irish banks, and US investors in Ireland were emphasising the chill factor of a second no vote.

"The investment community value certainty, and uncertainty is something they really dislike. A yes vote will underline Ireland's commitment to be a central player in European affairs, something that has proven to be a real national asset," said Jim O'Hara, general manager of microchip giant Intel's operations in Ireland.

Intel, like most other major employers in Ireland, played no role in the 2008 campaign but appealed strongly this time for the treaty's approval.

If the treaty becomes law, more policy decisions would be permitted by majority rather than unanimous votes in European summits and in the European commission, the EU's executive branch. Those policies, in turn, would increasingly be shaped by the elected parliaments of each nation and the European parliament, which currently has little say.

Projecting this more decisive EU abroad would be a new fixed-term president in place of a decades-old system that rotates the presidency among governments every six months and a new foreign minister.

But if Ireland rejects Lisbon again, the EU would find itself in uncharted diplomatic waters. An alliance built on the principle of unanimous consent for key decisions would be faced with the reality that, under current rules, a country of barely 4 million can repeatedly block reforms designed to improve the lives of a continent of 500 million.