Bruton CLanger

ixtlan

Well... this is a rock and a hard place situation. And I am a yes voter.

Regardless of what anyone has said, I believe the reality is that up until a few weeks before we run out of money we could have a second vote, if there was a no this time. We know the government will continue with current policy yes or no... and come next year there are several paths that may be travelled.

1/ The Eurozone may completely collapse, in which case a yes/no will be irrelevant.
2/ The EU will find some kind of solution which is seen to be workable, changing either the terms of the treaty or more likely changing the context of it (with a second treaty maybe). If that happens Ireland will be approaching the funding cliff with no guaranteed funds. One might expect a desperate scramble at that point to get a solution to the "Irish" problem.

So, with me having said that, do you think I favour postponing the vote until just before the cliff so that it's vote yes, or default, the week before disaster? That would be pretty dumb wouldn't it? Economic recovery depends on confidence. Regardless of what the EU does, a no vote will drastically reduce Irish business confidence right now. A yes vote, will at least keep things stable here, and then it's up to the EU (including Ireland) to find a solution to the bigger picture. I don't buy into the no side theory that we should do our best to precipitate a crisis to force attention to the problem. In fact our no vote is likely to be noise in the bigger Eurozone picture... except to business here.

Something else that occurs to me is that the no side position that a no strengthens the government's negotiating hand is nonsense. What it tells the EU is that this is a weak weak government which can't be trusted to implement any agreement reached. The no side probably cheer that description... and yet they think this is a good thing for us to get a good deal?

So Richard Bruton was stating what everyone was thinking, including some vocal parts of the no side who want a second vote if they feel something has been achieved (Declan Ganley, Shane Ross etc). The thing Bruton and the government realise is that while there could be a second vote, a failure to ratify now is just going to cause more pain for us right now from a confidence point of view, and will do nothing to force an EU solution because there are already far bigger issues forcing that (Greece and Spain).

Ix.

GSF

Having heard the full quote the furore sounds like a childish word game. Of course if we are up the creek without a paddle & nobody wants to lend to us at less than loan shark rates, we will seek to get access to bailout funds. If that means a 2nd referendum to achieve that, we'd be mad not to do that.

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Personally, I suspect the mere possibility that we might have a second referendum complete with talk of GDP, structural deficits etc will reduce a large chunk of the population to despair.