The Lisbon Treaty Referendum Oct 2nd

[Zapatista]

Lads I will be out of the country on vote day. Any ideas how I do a postal vote?

She here if you can get a postal vote.

http://www.citizensinformation.ie/categories/government-in-ireland/elections-and-referenda/voting/registering-to-vote

Gave those lads a ring. No joy looks like I'm be disenfranchised.

Don't worry, if your going to an EU country you'll fit right in

[Gnevin]

http://www.generationyes.ie/

[Zapatista]

http://www.generationyes.ie/

This is hilarious. They are making the exact same mistake as last time. Declan Ganley was the bogey man the used to protray the entire No side last time out. Now this unelected group (and the Government) have picked up on another small unelected group and are targeting them in order to raise Coir's profile. Watch as the Yes side ignore the credible people on the No side and propel Coir to the high profile leaders of the No campaign. This is what boxing promoters do in order to keep their titles. Pick a weak opponent and create a spin around them so the average Joe actually thinks they are real contenders. Does anyone actually think this Coir group can persuade the modern Irish electorate? The answer is clearly No. To think our Government are treating this crowd as real players is insulting to the Irish people.


I wonder will there be as many questions regarding funding of Generationyes (and these other makeyuppy groups) as there was about Libertas?

http://www.politics.ie/lisbon-treaty/86637-generation-yes-question-locked-boards-ie.html

[Gnevin]

http://www.generationyes.ie/

This is hilarious. They are making the exact same mistake as last time. Declan Ganley was the bogey man the used to protray the entire No side last time out. Now this unelected group (and the Government) have picked up on another small unelected group and are targeting them in order to raise Coir's profile. Watch as the Yes side ignore the credible people on the No side and propel Coir to the high profile leaders of the No campaign. This is what boxing promoters do in order to keep their titles. Pick a weak opponent and create a spin around them so the average Joe actually thinks they are real contenders. Does anyone actually think this Coir group can persuade the modern Irish electorate? The answer is clearly No. To think our Government are treating this crowd as real players is insulting to the Irish people.


I wonder will there be as many questions regarding funding of Generationyes (and these other makeyuppy groups) as there was about Libertas?

http://www.politics.ie/lisbon-treaty/86637-generation-yes-question-locked-boards-ie.html

I doubt it but then again generation yes doesn't appear to have near infinite money and Ganley was a bogey his views on Europe where/are off the wall.

[Zapatista]

I doubt it but then again generation yes doesn't appear to have near infinite money and Ganley was a bogey his views on Europe where/are off the wall.

I'm suprised you can dismiss it so easily. Ganleys views on the Lisbon treaty (his views on Europe are seperate) were far from off the wall. In fact they were closer to reality than Brian Cowen's.

Generation Yes are a section of a wider campaign who do seem to have infinite money. They haven't finished their spending yet either.

[Gnevin]

I doubt it but then again generation yes doesn't appear to have near infinite money and Ganley was a bogey his views on Europe where/are off the wall.

I'm suprised you can dismiss it so easily. Ganleys views on the Lisbon treaty (his views on Europe are seperate) were far from off the wall. In fact they were closer to reality than Brian Cowen's.

Generation Yes are a section of a wider campaign who do seem to have infinite money. They haven't finished their spending yet either.

I found it hard to separate the man from the politics and the politics on Lisbon and his politics on Europe.

I've yet to hear and argument for the no side that instead some sort of lie or half truth.

[Zapatista]

I found it hard to separate the man from the politics and the politics on Lisbon and his politics on Europe.

I've yet to hear and argument for the no side that instead some sort of lie or half truth.

I don't believe you.

One fact is that Ireland will have to increase military spending another is that we would only have a Commissioner for 10 out of 15 years.

[Gnevin]

Commissioner for 10 out of 15 years.

Yes due to nice . Lisbon changes this .

[Gnevin]

One fact is that Ireland will have to increase military spending a

I've never seen this "fact" printed anywhere and so what it's true ?

The EU isn't going to be starting any wars and it would be nice not to have to ask the Yanks  everytime the UN want us to intervene in the like of Chad etc 

[Zapatista]

Commissioner for 10 out of 15 years.

Yes due to nice . Lisbon changes this .

No. This format is not due to Nice. Nice recommends a change but doesn't specify how. Lisbon does specify that we will not have a commissioner for 5 out of 15 years. Due to the recent guarantees however this will be delayed for the first 5 years of Lisbon.

My point was that they are facts from the No side. They are not lies or half truths.

[Zapatista]

I've never seen this "fact" printed anywhere and so what it's true ?

The EU isn't going to be starting any wars and it would be nice not to have to ask the Yanks  everytime the UN want us to intervene in the like of Chad etc

If you think it's a good idea or bad idea is your own choice. EU member states are involved in wars across the globe already. There will be more wars.

The point being is that it's true. The No side have said this. The No side think it's a bad idea. They also think it is a strange requirement when there is no requirement to increase spending on Education or infrastructure etc.

[Gnevin]

Commissioner for 10 out of 15 years.

Yes due to nice . Lisbon changes this .

No. This format is not due to Nice. Nice recommends a change but doesn't specify how. Lisbon does specify that we will not have a commissioner for 5 out of 15 years. Due to the recent guarantees however this will be delayed for the first 5 years of Lisbon.

My point was that they are facts from the No side. They are not lies or half truths.

Ireland, and all other Member States, will keep a Commissioner
http://www.lisbontreaty.ie/

[Gnevin]

I've never seen this "fact" printed anywhere and so what it's true ?

The EU isn't going to be starting any wars and it would be nice not to have to ask the Yanks  everytime the UN want us to intervene in the like of Chad etc

If you think it's a good idea or bad idea is your own choice. EU member states are involved in wars across the globe already. There will be more wars.

The point being is that it's true. The No side have said this. The No side think it's a bad idea. They also think it is a strange requirement when there is no requirement to increase spending on Education or infrastructure etc.

So your only issue with the treaty is a requirement to increase military spending?

The no side thinks everything is a bad idea which will destroy civilization as we know it

[Zapatista]

Ireland, and all other Member States, will keep a Commissioner
http://www.lisbontreaty.ie/

Yes, for the first 5 years. It will then change. Once ratified the treaty cannot be ignored and the treaty says it will change. You can't decide to implement part of a treaty.

So your only issue with the treaty is a requirement to increase military spending?

No. I have many issues with it.

The no side thinks everything is a bad idea which will destroy civilization as we know it

Please don't bring the debate down to that level. It's the lowest form of attack and is actually insulting.

[Declan]

I think I posted this before but here is the thinking of a friend of mine who voted no the last time and sees no significant difference this time around - No lies or dishonesty here but a perfectly rational reasoning process.

Before the referendum, No voters were called loolahs and lunatics and were accused of being out of their minds. Now, voluble Yes campaigners proclaim to the world that we voted No because we are "anti-Europe" or are gullible souls who bought the "lies" of the No campaign.

This simplistic and self-serving analysis may soothe their outrage but is far from the truth in the case of people like myself, who are "pro-Europe" and who decided to vote No without any help from Mary Lou MacDonald or Declan Ganley. In the fading hope that "respecting the will of the people" might mean our leaders make a genuine effort to understand why people voted No, I humbly offer an account of my own reason for ticking the No box.

1. One of the few undisputed facts in the Lisbon debate is that the content of the treaty is at least 90 per cent the same as that of the constitutional treaty rejected by the French and Dutch people. We were told, however, that there are significant differences in the legal form of the two treaties.

2. The question therefore arises as to why so much effort (and taxpayers' money) was invested in changing the form of the constitution treaty while leaving its content more or less intact.

3. This important question has received very little attention in the debate. However, it has been answered in the columns of your newspaper as follows: "As for the changes now proposed to be made to the constitutional treaty, most are presentational changes that have no practical effect. They have simply been designed to enable certain heads of government to sell to their people the idea of ratification by parliamentary action rather than by referendum" [Garret FitzGerald, June 30th, 2007).

"The political subtext to the 'constitution versus treaty' debate in Britain, the Netherlands, France and Denmark was that passing a constitution would almost certainly require a referendum (which might be rejected), whereas a treaty could be ratified in parliaments" (Jamie Smyth, May 12th, 2008).

Neither of these writers could be accused of peddling anti-Europe "lies" and their answers are convincing to me.

The obvious conclusion is that the Lisbon Treaty was drafted with the specific intention of sidestepping ratification by referendum in as many member-states as possible.

4. While an arguable case can be made for ratification by parliamentary process rather than by referendum, the repackaging of the rejected constitutional treaty to avoid referendums looks very much like an underhand attempt to engineer the transfer of sovereignty from the people to those who make our laws, whoever and wherever they may be. At best this is insufferably arrogant; at worst it is dishonest.

I voted No against this arrogance and/or dishonesty and for no other reason. I suspect that many other people voted No for similar reasons without any prompting from Libertas, Sinn Féin or Cóir.

If the democratic legitimacy of the European project is of real concern to the great and good who are so cross at us for voting No, they should stop insulting our intelligence by shouting about "lies" and look instead at the Lisbon Treaty itself for the reasons why so many people voted against it. - Yours, etc,