What do you think is the best course of action for Ireland to take now?

jimi_t

rossie1977 wrote: »

^^^ huh

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1338551/Revealed-the-NHS-scandal-of-'his'-and-'hers'-trolley-corridors.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article3582299.ece

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/dec/07/france.paulwebster

Talking about Thailand here - re-read my post.

Capt'n Midnight

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

Take the money and run, we did well enough out of it, we accepted their bribes and sweeteners.

As far as losing our constitutional rights and becoming a part of this big brother euro dictatorship that will eventually force us to carry RFID based Identity cards and microchip implants.

NO WAY.

NO is NO. what part of NO do these coffers not understand.

75% of the NO voters reckoned we could a better deal.

We've done it once before, and if the EU give in then everyone will be at it. I can't see the EU giving us a better deal and I can't understand how anyone could think they could.

20% of the NO voters said it was because of lack of information.

And as for RFID chips they only work at short ranges and would cost a lot of money to impliment and some people get picky about it.

Instead almost every EU citizen pays for a long range tracking device they carry with them at all times, unlike RFID it also gathers lots of information about them. It's getting to the stage where not having a mobile phone makes it look like you want to hide your movements.

I wonder if they have linked CCTV to mobile phones yet to match faces to phones and so pick out and follow people without phones by facial recognition and ID their friends with phones as that's where they may be in future.

Red Alert

France & Holland basically were enough to pretend to change the constitution. They won't even give us that.

is_that_so

No pretend about it, they did change it. The Dutch asked for clarification on the existing division of competencies between member states and the Union, and the incorporation into the treaty text of a reference to the accession criteria for candidate member states and got them. It may be technical but it was important to them and enabled them to accept it.

Oddly enough Sarkozy promised to ratify it without a referendum yet the French still voted for him.

ART6

I'm getting confused about which of these threads to respond to. However, for my one cent's worth:

I am a firm NO voter, but I don't have a problem in principle with an EU Federation. I can see that in future we in Europe will have to get our act together to compete with the likes of China and India, but I don't believe that the proposals so far go anywhere near dealing with that. I don't have a problem with Ireland becoming the *st state of the EU Federation, but it has to be based upon a model of democracy that makes all of the people feel included.

As an alternative to the EU Constitution (no, it isn't dead. The EU politicians are determined to revive it) I would suggest a long hard look at the American Constitution. Theirs is a far older democracy than that of any country in Europe other than the UK, and their Constitution has been refined from a solid core principle over several hundreds of years. I accept that it isn't flawless, but then no democracy is. It has still produced the world's greatest industrial and military power.

If we signed up to that, we would be electing a president every five years, and the senior bureaucracy would go or stay with him (her). We would be electing our judges instead of giving them a job for life. We would be electing our local police chief, and sacking him if he didn't provide a policing service. Brian Cowen would be State Governor which, I suspect, is about the extent of his abilities.

It would also give me the right to bear arms and to shoot the arse off anyone who threatened my family instead of the wishy washy "You must retreat unless retreat is impossible, and then you may only exert 'reasonable' force":mad:

portomar

SimpleSam06 wrote: »

The question is, why is that a surprise to anyone.


Can we get our fishing grounds back please? Also we would not be bound by, for example, EU regulations on water in a country with a grotesque abundance of the stuff. Sure we might miss the structural funds, but really, we've had those for years now and we still have third world infrastructure.
.

untrue

portomar

ART6 wrote: »

I am a firm NO voter...

...It would also give me the right to bear arms and to shoot the arse off anyone who threatened my family instead of the wishy washy "You must retreat unless retreat is impossible, and then you may only exert 'reasonable' force":mad:

ha ha ha, you seem to want to remodel the eu on the US, you wont find much support for that, not even from ganley

portomar

is_that_so wrote: »

Oddly enough Sarkozy promised to ratify it without a referendum yet the French still voted for him.

excatly. and we still get this "we're voting for half a billion people" crap politics of france, auistria etc. is none of my business, they will ratify however they ratify these things.

SimpleSam06

portomar wrote: »

untrue

Fair point, I've been in third world countries with better infrastructure than us.

justcallmetex

We can only hope that the nation has the balls to stand up and flick the finger to the EU for attempting to black mail a nation.

justcallmetex

Stekelly wrote: »

TBH the people didnt vote no for the lisbon treaty. There was more than enough of the no vote that were voting for reasons totally outside the treaty (didnt understand it/ want the foreigners out :eek: /anti vrt vote :rolleyes: etc) that if they had educated themselves or kept out of something they dont understand it would have went the other way.

People should be made take a test to show they understand somehting before they are allowed vote for or against it.

Wow what a plan can picture the f*&kers in the EU now..."what we do is make it even more complicated pass out a multiple choice test b4 the stupid Irish are allowed in the polling booth et wallah a bullet in the head of democracy"

justcallmetex

Flex wrote: »

The treaty is now legally dead, it had to be ratified by all member states and it has failed in doing so. Find it odd that the EU leaders say theyre going to press ahead with it despite knowing it cant be passed now, and more odd that the Euro-philes in Ireland want to give more power and control over to these people who obviously dont give a ****e about our opinion

In a nut shell!

jjbrien

biko wrote: »

We take over UK and become an island nation, Denmark and Norway are liberated next.

Norway done that smart thing and didnt join.

phantom_lord

jjbrien wrote: »

Norway done that smart thing and didn't join.

yeah, silly ireland joining the eu, taking all those billions to build roads and infrastructural projects, all those millions for the farmer, and attracting all those multi nationals due to being part of a free market, we should have just stayed out and kept our fish, and our em, freedom.



anyone who suggests that ireland should leave the eu, is omg lol retarded.

jjbrien

phantom_lord wrote: »

yeah, silly ireland joining the eu, taking all those billions to build roads and infrastructural projects, all those millions for the farmer, and attracting all those multi nationals due to being part of a free market, we should have just stayed out and kept our fish, and our em, freedom.



anyone who suggests that ireland should leave the eu, is omg lol retarded.

I was not referring to Ireland was I? If Norway joined they would have lost alot of thier oil so it was good from them to keep out. Ireland needed the EU.

Tar.Aldarion

rossie1977 wrote: »

you better define quality of life before people claim it was all due to our suckling of the EU teat

Health: Life expectancy at birth
Family life: Divorce rate
Community life
Material well being
Political stability and security
Climate and geography
Job security
Political freedom
Gender equality

today ireland ranks number three in the world for economic freedom http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/countries.cfm

5th in Human Development Index which measures life expectancy, literacy, educational attainment, and GDP per capita http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/

first in terms of quality of life http://www.economist.com/media/pdf/QUALITY_OF_LIFE.pdf

fourth from bottom in terms of the failed states index (we are nearly twice as sustainable as the USA) http://www.fundforpeace.org/web/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=229&Itemid=366

and sixth in the global peace index (we were fourth last year) http://www.visionofhumanity.org/gpi/results/rankings/2008/

i am with you on your last paragraph, so many begrudgers and naysayers in this country or at least on this website with threads like "what do you hate most about ireland", "what country would you move to" etc.

this country is not perfect and it will never ever ever achieve anything close to perfection (no country ever will) but what we have achieved since independence is truly remarkable given the fact that

*the birth of this nation happened some 60 years after a devastating famine that eliminated half our population,
*we were the only country in western europe not to experience the industrial revolution which set us back 100 years
*WW1
*the stock market crash and terrible recession that resulted across the world
*WW2
*the cold war
*policies of the likes of de Valera which shall we shall we say are better best forgotten

SimpleSam06 wrote: »

Yours is sadly lacking I fear - Yet another punter who can't tell the difference between a people and their politicians. Up until fairly recently, Ireland had the highest quality of life in the world, way beyond the UK, so we must be doing something right.

This is despite the obvious and glaring shambles you have pointed out. of course, even such luminaries as the UK and US can't boast a clean sheet on civil projects either, which has not prevented them from getting things done.

I'm as great a critic of the current political establishment and the dug-in parasites that it has brought with it in the public sector as you are, probably more so. However I strongly dispute that we are permanently saddled with them or paralysed by them, and I find all suggestions that the Irish people couldn't achieve goals they set out to achieve highly distasteful.

As a point of intrest, the new report released today says we have the lowest quality of life in Europe now. Quite a turn around.

anonymous_joe

To all those who suggest leaving the EU. What effects would that have on our currency?

The economy would be further f*cked, we know that, but how would we go about replacing the Euro?

Anyway, I think that a second vote should be held. Important issues have had more than one referendum in the past, such as divorce. Opinions change. Especially given how little information there was last time around. I think a lot of people would have voted yes if someone had explained the treaty. I also think a lot of people who were going to vote yes but didn't bother would be encouraged to vote if there was a second referendum.

beautiation

Let's jsut close down this country business and become an adventure island theme park, we've had a good run.

SantryRed

Ah lets just blow the country up.

It's a kip anyways.

Jigsaw

How can people forget so quickly how beneficial the EU has been to Ireland? The mind boggles. Does anyone have any recollection of the dive the place was prior to EU investment. A lot of half baked views by people here who like to look as though they have an opinion. Simply serves to reinforce my view that benevolent totalitarianism is the best form of government.

People who don't know how to tie their shoelace or do long division should not be given the opportunity to vote in a referendum.