Cowen using the Lisbon "YES" vote as an excuse to pull us out of this mess.

Run_to_da_hills

What a better way to fool the people into voting Yes by telling them that the Yes vote will help pull Ireland us out of this mess sooner.

The same mess that they got us into in the first place, ie unregulated greedy bankers, back handers with developers and billions of Euro down the toilet on white elephant projects.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5hNsB7K_pvJfh3JGaARXyWBtW73aA

O'Morris

The attempt to link our economic recovery with a yes to the Lisbon Treaty is not all that different from the way the American neocons tried to hint at a link between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and the September 11th attacks. Sadly, as with the Americans, I think most Irish people will probably fall for it.

passive

I'd almost consider removing my ignoring of the OP to see what this thread's about, but the laughable second post kinda reassures me in my suspicion that nothing is to be gained from reading this... The EU is obviously Hitler cubed.

conchubhar1

no passive ignorance is bliss - pff

netron

Cowen is toast.

That cringing , begging letter to the British would make any traditional FF nationalist sick as a pig.

Doesnt look good. For him, that is.

Rb

O'Morris wrote: »

The attempt to link our economic recovery with a yes to the Lisbon Treaty is not all that different from the way the American neocons tried to hint at a link between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and the September 11th attacks. Sadly, as with the Americans, I think most Irish people will probably fall for it.

Of course the Irish people will "fall" for it, the electorate vote with their pockets and what appears to be immediately positive for their pocket is what gets the tick.

Recent evidence of this would be the last general election, people had a real chance for change yet they feared FG would hike up the taxes and decided to keep the current shower of bastids on in the hope that their money might be safe, then FF come out with the "hard hitting" budget and finally people start to "care".

Oh no, it wasn't the defending of the crook Ahern, or his cohorts, that drove the people to the streets, it was their fear of losing their medical cards and the pension levy.

We've become a nation of naive, greedy, spineless rats, if the Government (incorrectly) imply that voting No will see our financial ruin or that voting Yes will see the building sector boom again, that is what will go through.

Podman

If this vote is passed, the ballot box will become a suggestion box.

It's the last real vote we will ever have. Do you really want to give up our freedom so easily?

Tell it to Collins, Pearse, Parnell and the rest, tell them we don't want it and they died for nothing.

Rb

chompy wrote: »

If this vote is passed, the ballot box will become a suggestion box.

It's the last real vote we will ever have. Do you really want to give up our freedom so easily?

Tell it to Collins, Pearse, Parnell and the rest, tell them we don't want it and they died for nothing.

What, in the Lisbon Treaty, "gives up" our Freedom?

You do know it makes it easier for us to leave the EU, if we should so want, right?

netron

chompy wrote: »

If this vote is passed, the ballot box will become a suggestion box.

It's the last real vote we will ever have. Do you really want to give up our freedom so easily?

Tell it to Collins, Pearse, Parnell and the rest, tell them we don't want it and they died for nothing.

to be fair to the Yes side - look what Collins , Pearse , Parnell resulted in - 60 years of brutal theocratic rule by the Catholic church.

It sure wasnt "freedom" - not by a long shot.

I'll be voting "No" , not for Irish nationalism, but because I believe that the EU is fundamentally undemocratic - my reasons for voting No will be entirely European, and not related to anything Irish.

I hope others approach it with the same mindset.

netron

Rb wrote: »

What, in the Lisbon Treaty, "gives up" our Freedom?

You do know it makes it easier for us to leave the EU, if we should so want, right?

EU Foreign minister - unelected
EU President - unelected
EU Commission - unelected

thats enough unelected positions for me. I'll be voting No.

Podman

netron wrote: »

..look what Collins , Pearse , Parnell resulted in - 60 years of brutal theocratic rule by the Catholic church..

These people are not responsible for what the Church did/does.

netron wrote: »

..I'll be voting "No" , not for Irish nationalism, but because I believe that the EU is fundamentally undemocratic..

me too.

Scofflaw

netron wrote: »

to be fair to the Yes side - look what Collins , Pearse , Parnell resulted in - 60 years of brutal theocratic rule by the Catholic church.

It sure wasnt "freedom" - not by a long shot.

I'll be voting "No" , not for Irish nationalism, but because I believe that the EU is fundamentally undemocratic - my reasons for voting No will be entirely European, and not related to anything Irish.

I hope others approach it with the same mindset.

Ooh...fish, barrel, where's my shotgun?

resisting temptation,
Scofflaw

netron

Scofflaw wrote: »

Ooh...fish, barrel, where's my shotgun?

resisting temptation,
Scofflaw

is it not the case that the EU Commission, which is unelected, can inact laws. And yet the EU Parliament cannot inact laws.

True or false?

Scofflaw

netron wrote: »

is it not the case that the EU Commission, which is unelected, can inact laws. And yet the EU Parliament cannot inact laws.

True or false?

Neither the Commission nor the Parliament can enact laws by and of themselves. None of the EU institutions can.

cordially,
Scofflaw

conchubhar1

''Neither the Commission nor the Parliament can enact laws by and of themselves. None of the EU institutions can.

cordially,
Scofflaw''



okay

with the help of the council......

dont avoid the question, with that sidestep

Scofflaw

conchubhar1 wrote: »

Neither the Commission nor the Parliament can enact laws by and of themselves. None of the EU institutions can.

okay

with the help of the council......

dont avoid the question, with that sidestep

It's not really a sidestep - it's more pointing out the inadequacy of the question. If the question is "who has the right of legislative initiative", then the answer is the Commission. Does that mean the Commission can "pass laws"? No, it doesn't, because what the Commission initiates must be passed by the Council and/or the Parliament.

The only point to boiling a complex system down to a 'simple' yes/no question is rhetoric - in other words, propaganda. It's like asking "who has the power in Ireland?" - the question is without value.

cordially,
Scofflaw

conchubhar1

rhetoric does not equal propaganda

okay i worded that wrong - reading back on it is cring worthy my bad


the commission cant pass laws

Scofflaw

conchubhar1 wrote: »

rhetoric does not equal propaganda

okay i worded that wrong - reading back on it is cring worthy my bad


the commission cant pass laws

Not by itself, no. It has some regulatory powers where those have been delegated to it by the Council, but otherwise everything has to go past either the governments, the parliament, or both.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Podman

I'm trying to get a simple picture of the pecking order in the new EU (please amend for truth).
so far..

The Commission can stop a bill from passing, unless The Council removes it's powers.

The Parliament and The Governments have only an advisory role, and can be ignored?

Of these 4 groups, who exactly are we able to elect Directly into that office?

conchubhar1

meps in the parliment are the only directly elected

but the european council is the leaders of states (prime minsiters, i think exclusively) so they are direcly eclected

commission is elected in several ways by people who are directly elected - so in a way they are elected

the (council of the european union) council of ministers - are directly elected in the way they are ministers that are elected


---
names are not right above - but the jist is right and the points gotten?

SeanW

does anyone else think it's a bad idea to have another Lisbon referendum during the tenure of this government? Even though we did not have a General Election this year, the people still rendered their judgement by hammering gov't parties - particularly the Greens - in the elections that were held. Yet despite that, Cowen and Co. still think they have a mandate to govern. Well, technically & legally they do, but no more.

But given this trend, it doesn't seem to make sense to have a 2nd Lisbon referendum during this governments reign.

To maintain an objective an electorate as possible, I would think it would make more sense to hold the referendum on the same day as a general election.

Podman

I think so, it's late and the treaty text is buried in legalese (usually a bad omen for me)

So the MEPs are the only one's Directly elected to EU posts.

Everyone else is elected by other electees, or was in the right place at the right time (eg. ministers, etc)

dyl10

Yes vote for me. I would prefer not to see us expelled from the EU or rather a new EU setup with the Lisbon Treaty as it's basis and Ireland being left out on the lurch.

Rb

dyl10 wrote: »

Yes vote for me. I would prefer not to see us expelled from the EU or rather a new EU setup with the Lisbon Treaty as it's basis and Ireland being left out on the lurch.

It won't happen.

conchubhar1

if the eu sideline us or kick us out (fantasy) we should stay out

if it does this - does it deserve existence?

Podman

SeanW wrote: »

does anyone else think it's a bad idea to have another Lisbon referendum during the tenure of this government?..

yep

SeanW wrote: »

..hammering gov't parties - particularly the Greens..

Well, Gormless did bend over when it came to green issues, even though he was "given" the "green" job. It seemed his thinking changed somewhere along the line, environmental issues took a back seat to big business and roads.
Fair play to Trevor, giving FF the ffingers.

SeanW wrote: »

..hold the referendum on the same day as a general election..

no, I think a general election first, to have leaders that we actually elect.

Podman

dyl10 wrote: »

Yes vote for me. I would prefer not to see us expelled from the EU or rather a new EU setup with the Lisbon Treaty as it's basis and Ireland being left out on the lurch.

Sure half the Illuminazi live in Ireland now, they're not going to give it up. They want control of Europe because the resources of the US are depleting.

They want us to be smiling when the country is handed over on a plate.

Scofflaw

chompy wrote: »

I'm trying to get a simple picture of the pecking order in the new EU (please amend for truth).
so far..

The Commission can stop a bill from passing, unless The Council removes it's powers.

The Parliament and The Governments have only an advisory role, and can be ignored?

Of these 4 groups, who exactly are we able to elect Directly into that office?

Hm. Lisbon makes no changes to the 'pecking order'. From the top:

1. Intergovernmental Conference (IGC). A group consisting of delegations from every member state government - negotiate/write the EU treaties. Meets as required.

2. The European Council is a council of the heads of the member states. Elected nationally, obviously. No legal role, but they set the "ground rules" for the EU and decide major issues. Is the supreme political authority in the EU. Meets at least twice a year.

3. The Council of the European Union is a council comprising the Ministers of the member state governments. Elected nationally, again. This is the main decision-making body in the EU. It can delegate its powers of decision to the Commission (within tightly constrained limits), but otherwise all legislation has to pass through the Council. Council can request, amend, and reject legislation.

4. The European Parliament consists of directly elected MEPs. Elected Europe-wide. The main accountability body in the EU. Can reject or dismiss the Commission, refuse the EU budget. Can currently request, amend, and reject legislation in about 75% of legislative areas, increases significantly under Lisbon.

5. The Commission consists of appointed Commissioners, one per member state at present. This is the main regulatory body of the EU. The Commission holds the right of legislative initiative, but can only pass regulations itself in those areas where the power to do so has been delegated to it by the Council. Drafts and proposes all legislation.

New in Lisbon:

6. The national parliaments gain the right to see and object to proposed EU legislation. If sufficient parliaments object to legislation, it becomes significantly easier for either the Council or the Parliament to veto the legislation.

7. Citizens Initiative - not highly regarded in Ireland, since we don't have a legislative petition mechanism of our own. Allows the electorate to request legislation directly from the Commission on foot of a million-signature petition.

There isn't really a 'pecking order' - all the institutions have some of the power, but they have to work together to produce anything.

cordially,
Scofflaw

conchubhar1

could the extra control to the parliment, human rights charter and citezens initiative be implemented without the lisbon treaty?

and should they not be there fecking already

besides these points, i dont see a reason for voting yes.....

Run_to_da_hills

SeanW wrote: »

But given this trend, it doesn't seem to make sense to have a 2nd Lisbon referendum during this governments reign.

What odds dose it make, If Labour or Fina Gael got in they would still push for a Yes vote despite Finna Fail's current downturn in confidence.

The only party that truly rejected the last referendum was Sinn Fein. Its all about what the people want and not what the politicians want.

conchubhar1

socialist party aswel ^ (among others, mckenna for one)

oscarBravo

Rb wrote: »

Of course the Irish people will "fall" for it, the electorate vote with their pockets and what appears to be immediately positive for their pocket is what gets the tick.

Yay for democracy.

nullzero

They (FF, FG, LB etc...) were predicting last year that a No to Lisbon would be the death knell to our economy.
The fact is the rot had already set in at that stage, it was convenient for them to point out Lisbon as a reason for people not being bale to hold onto their jobs and finding themselves in line for social welfare instead of in line at the airport on another skiing holiday.
The fact of the matter is that our economy was always going to crash at some stage but instead of facing up to this inevitability we as a nation decided the best policy would be to close our eyes, stick our fingers in our ears and shout "la la la" as loud as we could in the hope that by the time we opened our eyes the storm would be over.
Unfortunately as seemingly iron clad as that plan may have seemed in the days when our biggest decisions were something like whether to go for the M5 BMW or the E Class Mercedes, nowadays we have to face the reality, or do we?
Yes me may all be either struggling to keep our jobs or struggling even more to find a new one and hoping we don't end up having our home repossessed by the same banks which have being screwing us for years and continue to have their arses covered by our elected representatives in the Leinster House. But at least we can look to Europe, the shining beacon of hope for all democratically minded people, all business minded people, and we can surely, by ratifying an undemocratic treaty that has already been turned down by our people, save our economy and put ourselves on the road back to the Mercedes dealership. Come on Ireland, you're worth it, vote Yes to Lisbon, just think of all the crap you'll be able to buy and all the holidays you can go on, and what's more, there'll be no more pesky referendums to annoy you and clog up the airways when you could be watching CSI re runs. Think of yourself, not your stupid rights, you don't need them, when have they ever been any use to you? Do your rights pay for your holidays? Do your rights buy you that new luxury car? No they don't, those lousy rights what have they ever done for you? Vote Yes to Lisbon and get ready for the gold rush, put your ear to the ground! Surely you can hear it coming already?

The elephant in the room here is the fact that although no economy, our included was ever going to withstand the most basic laws of economics; we could be in a position that would be somewhat better than what it is now.
Any moron could tell you that our economy was started up by the arrival of international corporations looking to operate ion a cheaper labour market than the one they came from. These footloose companies have a simple strategy; Leave an expensive labour market for a cheaper one, in the process raise the economic profile of the new cheaper labour market. What happens then is that the once unemployed people in the cheap labour market become accustomed to good working conditions and start looking for pay increases and better working conditions from their employers. Eventually these companies see their profit margins decrease and begin to leave the once profitable labour market.
This is a big factor in the state of the Irish economy, but what is making this worse, is the introduction of new labour markets within the EU. You know, the accession states that joined the party after the Nice Treaty (which incidentally went to a second referendum).
At the time, we were told by the great Bertie that a No to Nice was bad for our economy, that it would send the "wrong message" to Europe, that it would make Ireland "outcasts". See anything in that which sounds in any way familiar? Fear tactics are great for getting what you want, make people so afraid of something that they'll do anything to stop the "worst" from happening.
With hindsight, we can see that our second Nice referendum's Yes vote didn't do our economy all that much good, in fact it pretty much sealed our fate, regardless of what Bertie and his cronies might tell you.
If anyone for one second believes that voting yes to Lisbon will benefit our economy in any way they clearly need their head examined. The Lison treaty is just a re labeled version of the European Constitution, something which was shown up and the vile piece of filth it really is in France and Holland. The European Economic Community was the best thing to ever happen to Ireland. Unfortunately the European Union is possibly the worst. We don't need centralized control in Europe, economic compliance is great, but that has long since ceased to operate in the way we assumed it was meant to.
Ireland struggled long and hard for independence, and if we ratify this treaty we swill begin down the road to dependence once again. We have hardly covered ourselves in glory in the forum of democracy, but we've not even been at it for 100 years yet.
Unfortunately I predict the Irish people will buckle to the will of the Yes campaign. If we learned anything during the boom it is that we as a nation are selfish egotistical narcissists who care little for the welfare of others or our nation. Whatever works in the short term is ok as long as we can bask in the reflection of our luxury cars or on the balconies of our Bulgarian apartments. We need a huge change in peoples perceptions in order for the Lisbon treaty to be put into perspective, but I'm afraid that 5 months will not be long enough. I'm sure the realization will come, but all too late. Probably when the real machinations of this treaty become active and we realize what a mistake we've made, a bit like the way we keep re electing the same clowns to run our country, we'll be no different in the European forum.
We love being critical of government, but it is us that elect our governments and us that ratify treaties and we only have ourselves to blame.

Rb

oscarBravo wrote: »

Yay for democracy.

Indeed.

Yay.

Jellab

I really hope the Irish people open their eyes and realise a yes vote will not pull us out of this mess. Voting No didn't put us in to this mess. The greed greed greed did.
It is bad enough that we are being asked to vote a second time on the same thing.
Oh we didn't like your answer the last time so lets try again and see if we get it right this time.

Oh I am sick of this Country.
Please everyone open your eyes to the muppets that run it.
We should have proper business men running the country not the relatives of relatives and so on.


I for one will be voting no.
:P

passive

Jellab wrote: »

I for one will be voting no.
:P

What good will that do the economy/country/EU, praytell?

Scofflaw

nullzero wrote:

Unfortunately I predict the Irish people will buckle to the will of the Yes campaign. If we learned anything during the boom it is that we as a nation are selfish egotistical narcissists who care little for the welfare of others or our nation.

Which rather invites the question as to why the electorate voted No last time - did they "buckle to the will" of the No campaigns?

cordially,
Scofflaw

gizmo555

Scofflaw wrote: »

Which rather invites the question as to why the electorate voted No last time - did they "buckle to the will" of the No campaigns?

cordially,
Scofflaw

You can find a very detailed analysis of this question here, in the report on the survey commissioned by the Dept of Foreign Affairs after the last referendum.

http://www.imsl.ie/news/Millward_Brown_IMS_Lisbon_Research_Report.pdf

There was of course a variety of reasons for people voting No, but as the report makes clear, by far the single biggest reason for voting No and for abstaining was a lack of understanding of the treaty and nothing to do with any organised No campaign. 42% of those who voted no - that is, 22% of all who voted - did so for this reason. This was without a doubt the deciding factor in the last referendum. The Libertas and Coir bogeymen had much less to do with the result than either they or many in the Yes campaign would like to believe.

This lack of understanding is unsurprising given that - according to Giuliano Amato, former Italian prime minister - the treaty was deliberately drafted to be difficult to read so as to obscure the fact that it is almost the same as the rejected Constitution. And, as I've pointed out in other posts, this problem was compounded by our government not giving the referendum commission anything like enough time to do its job - something which looks like being repeated this time round. Here's what the last commission had to say about this in its post-referendum report:

It is with a certain sense of frustration that the Commission must once again record the fact that on this occasion it was not permitted ample time to prepare properly to plan and run a fully comprehensive information campaign. This is a matter which has been raised in most of the Commission's previous reports and in particular pages 62-63 of its campaign report on the Amsterdam Treaty and the Northern Ireland Agreements published in November 1998 (see extract in Appendix 1) and pages 11-13 of its campaign report on the first Treaty of Nice published in December 2001 (see extract in Appendix 2).

A further complication in this referendum was the fact that the date of referendum was not actually finalised until the polling day order was made on 12 May 2008. The delay in finalising the actual referendum day introduced a most unwelcome degree of uncertainty and further complicated the Commission's efforts to plan its information campaign.

The Commission has already set out in detail the actions other bodies were required to take in order to ensure that this Commission could perform it role in a proper manner (see Chapter 2). The point must be emphasised that future Commissions, like this one, will be obliged to operate in accordance with Directive 2004/18/EC, in relation to procurement, provided the relevant threshold is exceeded. The table at Appendix 3 shows that a minimum period of 158 days (i.e. over 5 months) is required if the Commission is to comply with proper procurement procedures.

This additional time would also give the Commission members adequate time to plan the information campaign, identify and consider in detail the main provisions of the referendum proposal, reduce this information to the appropriate number of pages of English text, have it examined in detail by legal advisers (including senior counsel) to ensure its accuracy and comprehensiveness, have it translated to Irish (to meet the statutory requirements arising from the implementation of the Official Languages Act 2003) and have the booklet designed. By contrast, on this occasion, the Commission had barely three weeks to carry out all those tasks.

http://www.refcom.ie/en/Reports/ReportonthereferendumontheLisbonTreaty/Name,9573,en.html

K-9

gizmo555 wrote: »

There was of course a variety of reasons for people voting No, but as the report makes clear, by far the single biggest reason for voting No and for abstaining was a lack of understanding of the treaty and nothing to do with any organised No campaign. 42% of those who voted no - that is, 22% of all who voted - did so for this reason. This was without a doubt the deciding factor in the last referendum. The Libertas and Coir bogeymen had much less to do with the result than either they or many in the Yes campaign would like to believe.

Plenty would have voted Yes too, so it's higher than 22%.

Though that means 58% did understand the Treaty.

P. Breathnach

K-9 wrote: »

Plenty would have voted Yes too, so it's higher than 22%.

Though that means 58% did understand the Treaty.

I suspect that many of those who voted no believed that they understood the treaty, but were mistaken in that belief -- for example, those who voted no to keep "our" Commissioner.

gizmo555

K-9 wrote: »

Plenty would have voted Yes too, so it's higher than 22%.

Though that means 58% did understand the Treaty.

You're probably right about yes voters, but the poll didn't ask them whether they understood the treaty, so one can't tell from it.

On the no voters, you can't draw the conclusion that all of the other 58% did understand the treaty - there was a wide variety of reasons for voting no, such as general mistrust of the government.

However, only 26% of no voters voted no because of specific issues they had with provisions of the treaty (including the commissioner issue), which goes to show what relatively little influence Libertas and Coir had on the outcome as well what a charade the whole guarantee process which the Irish government is engaged in is.

P. Breathnach

gizmo555 wrote: »

... However, only 26% of no voters voted no because of specific issues they had with provisions of the treaty (including the commissioner issue), which goes to show what relatively little influence Libertas and Coir had on the outcome as well what a charade the whole guarantee process which the Irish government is engaged in is.

I don't think that is a good inference. Libertas in particular (and some of its allies, like Ulick McElvaddy) made a big deal out of claiming that the treaty was incomprehensible, and arguing that was a basis on which to vote no.

K-9

gizmo555 wrote: »

You're probably right about yes voters, but the poll didn't ask them whether they understood the treaty, so one can't tell from it.

On the no voters, you can't draw the conclusion that all of the other 58% did understand the treaty - there was a wide variety of reasons for voting no, such as general mistrust of the government.

However, only 26% of no voters voted no because of specific issues they had with provisions of the treaty (including the commissioner issue), which goes to show what relatively little influence Libertas and Coir had on the outcome as well what a charade the whole guarantee process which the Irish government is engaged in is.

I don't know if the mistrust was much higher than in other Referenda.

OK, to steer this away from the normal point scoring: The Govt. addressed most of the concerns of the 26% Treaty related objections. People can argue about the guarantees, but Neutrality and Abortion are already protected in Nice2, taxation was a non issue anyway and the Commissioner issue can be changed by the looks of it. We can argue about the legality all day but I think we know that if the EU backtracked on these assurances after a Yes vote, it would cause massive damage to its authority and its unlikely it will want to do that.

On the understanding point, how much understanding of the Treaty is acceptable? The main issues, areas that have changed or do we expect normal, everyday people (most don't have the time or inclination) to read the whole damn thing?

gizmo555

K-9 wrote: »

On the understanding point, how much understanding of the Treaty is acceptable? The main issues, areas that have changed or do we expect normal, everyday people (most don't have the time or inclination) to read the whole damn thing?

Realistically, only a minute fraction of voters will themselves read and understand the treaty. However, we have a body, the referendum commission, which is tasked with explaining the issue in an unbiased non-partisan way, but successive commissions have not been given enough time to do their job properly. The last commission said they needed at least five months. At best, the next commission will get three months, if the government presses ahead with an early October referendum.

That, I think, would be a good start - appoint the new commission and consult it on what is a reasonable referendum date, instead of ignoring its needs as has been the pattern up to now.

K-9

gizmo555 wrote: »

Realistically, only a minute fraction of voters will themselves read and understand the treaty. However, we have a body, the referendum commission, which is tasked with explaining the issue in an unbiased non-partisan way, but successive commissions have not been given enough time to do their job properly. The last commission said they needed at least five months. At best, the next commission will get three months, if the government presses ahead with an early October referendum.

That, I think, would be a good start - appoint the new commission and consult it on what is a reasonable referendum date, instead of ignoring its needs as has been the pattern up to now.

Yes, but its more or less the same Treaty so between the 2 campaigns they should have enough time?

I take your point, but I think that applied more to Lisbon 1 than 2.

gizmo555

K-9 wrote: »

Yes, but its more or less the same Treaty so between the 2 campaigns they should have enough time?

I take your point, but I think that applied more to Lisbon 1 than 2.

Why not appoint the commission and then set the referendum date based on what they say? Really, we're only talking about two or at most three months extra either way. What's the rush?

conchubhar1

fianna fáil will use this treaty to bolster support and for their own purposes

they come into power during the up times, and use this as an excuse along with the global crisis to throw off any blame that should be attached to them

vote however you want, but dont vote yes because you think it will pull us out of this crisis
and equally dont vote no, for irrelevant reasons

K-9

gizmo555 wrote: »

Why not appoint the commission and then set the referendum date based on what they say? Really, we're only talking about two or at most three months extra either way. What's the rush?

Suppose you'd need to ask the Govt. that but still, between the 2 campaigns the Commission should have enough time. It isn't a brand new Treaty, though I would agree if it was.

nullzero

Scofflaw wrote: »

Which rather invites the question as to why the electorate voted No last time - did they "buckle to the will" of the No campaigns?

cordially,
Scofflaw

Perhaps you should have read how I was using the second Nice treaty referendum as a background to portraying the Irish public as "buckling to the will" of the Yes campaign.

That would have answered the question before you felt compelled to ask it.