Marie O'Halloranwatches as Fine Gael's Lucinda Creighton tries to reassure and persuade constituents
"I'M CROSS-EYED from reading about the treaty," says the smiling woman as she exits the church gates at Terenure in Dublin.
But she'll have to go back and read some more. "My granddaughter phoned me last night and told me 'Granny, you have to vote No to Lisbon, because it's going to mean the school holidays will be shorter'!"
"Well you can tell her that's not the case. The Lisbon Treaty will definitely not change school holidays," Fine Gael TD Lucinda Creighton assures her.
The party's director of elections for Dublin in the treaty campaign is handing out leaflets to churchgoers after Sunday services, with party official John Stanton and Fine Gael member Kevin O'Higgins.
The canvass includes churches in her Dublin South-East constituency: Rathgar, Beechwood, Terenure and a sale-of-work for the Sisters of St Peter Claver in Terenure.
At the Church of the Three Patrons in Rathgar, exiting Mass-goers aren't too interested in the treaty. "It'd be a waste giving it to me," says one man. "I'm not really on your side," says a woman with two children as she politely refuses a leaflet.
A number of people take the leaflet but don't indicate which way they're inclined when the Dublin South-East TD says "Fine Gael campaigning for a Yes vote."
One man indicates that his toddler son would like the leaflet. "He wants a magazine," he says.
Another middle-aged man refuses a leaflet but says "I will" as he goes by. One woman in her 50s refuses a leaflet, uttering a very firm "No".
During a lull, the Dublin South- East TD explains that she has been campaigning across the State since February. For a public meeting last week in Donnybrook, featuring Pat Cox and the party's MEP Gay Mitchell, 12,000 leaflets were distributed.
As deputy national director of the treaty campaign, she has a vested interest. What will it do to her career if it fails? "I'll have to resign my seat," she quips, jokingly. "It's not my career but Brian Cowen's that will be affected if it doesn't pass."
As more churchgoers exit, a woman she recognises smiles and shakes hands. Phyllis McQuillan, who was chair of the Active Retirement Association, says: "I'm wavering. I'm worried about our commissioners."
Fine Gael's spokeswoman on Europe gets into her stride. "The system used to be two commissioners for countries like Germany and one for Ireland. Now we are all equal," she says.
"We're not voting to reduce the number of commissioners. It is going to happen anyway." That was in a previous treaty.
"Now we're voting on how it's going to happen. We will be without a commissioner for one term and it's the same for Germany and France."
In Terenure, Fine Gael member Tom Ponsanby introduces Mary from Mayo. "The No people are saying we'll have no say in our salaries, our taxes, our Christian values," Mary worries.
"It's written into the protocol of the Maastricht Treaty that the EU accepts our prohibition on abortion," says Lucinda.
As for the tax situation, "if there is ever to be tax harmony it will require unanimity. Ireland is not on its own on this. There are at least 10 countries with less than 20 per cent tax."
Fine Gael Terenure councillor Edie Wynne expresses her disappointment that EU commissioner Charlie McCreevy said he hadn't read the treaty. "He's the EU commissioner. He's our person in Europe and he didn't bother to read it."
She says her daughter was indignant about it and was thinking about voting No. "He's treating Irish people with disdain and taking them for granted."
Surely that's not how he meant it? "It was how it was heard. That's what counts, not what was meant."
At the buzzing sale of work, a volunteer selling raffle tickets is introduced. "We're campaigning for a Yes vote," says Cllr Wynne. "I'm voting Yes," he replies. "We're not fools."