European growth key to Irish poll

Ahern receives flowers from shop assistant Teresa Lee on the campaign trail

DUBLIN, Republic of Ireland -- Irish voters are preparing to choose a new government with the future of the European Union playing a major role.

Polls open on Friday for a general election that could give the Irish their first single-party government for 25 years.

One poll on Thursday showed public opinion drifting towards a "no" vote in any second referendum on the enlarging the EU under the Nice Treaty, one of the key tests facing the next government.

Ireland threw the European Union's expansion plans into turmoil last June when a referendum rejected the treaty.

Thursday's Irish Times/MRBI poll showed 32 percent would vote for the treaty in a second referendum, down eight percent from the last poll in January, and that 32 percent would vote against, up three percent.

In last year's referendum the treaty was rejected by a margin of 54-46 percent.

The ruling Fianna Fail has maintained a comfortable lead in opinion polls throughout the campaign. On Thursday the opposition made a last minute appeal to voters not to give Prime Minister Bertie Ahern's party an overall majority.

Ahern has played down speculation that his party could form the first single party government.

He said: "I still hold the view that it will be the outgoing government that can make it. I don't think any party can make it on its own."

Fianna Fail, which has been in a coalition for the past five years with the Progressive Democrats, would need 83 seats to achieve an overall majority under a tight proportional representation system.

Opposition Fine Gael leader Michael Noonan says his party could surprise pollsters.

"If I had taken notice of the polls I wouldn't have started campaigning in the first week," he said. "The polls have been adverse all the way through but there is still a significant 'Don't Know' factor." About 32 percent of voters are thought to be undecided.

The election could also see Irish Republican party Sinn Fein take a bigger role. It had only one representative in the outgoing Dail -- the Irish parliament's lower house. Some commentators say it could get as many as six or seven.

"Three seats is our objective, but I have always said we could win or lose more than that, and it will be by a handful of votes," Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams told reporters on Wednesday.