And FG used to make a huge hullaballo about it too.
But once Phil Hogan got control of the strings, they changed their story immediately.
Call me a cynic, but they are all the same.

I’m going to vote NO, because the EU does not respect democracy.

Not too happy about that either. Elections should be held on a weekend, never mind on Friday. Though a Friday is much more preferable to a Thursday.

BTW Gerard. This isn’t an EU treaty, it’s intergovernmental. So you might want to move on to reason 2 for voting no.

Having a No tick is also unbalanced! One without could be aruged that TheJournal are advocating a spoiled vote!:p

Happily equally-sized composite image now included for everyone’s convenience. (Except people who intend to spoil their ballots. Can’t win ‘em all.)

Ha ha, fair play to the Journal, nobody can say they never listen.

haha… John, NOBODY would think The Journal was pushing for a yes vote, certainly not by the comments anyway.

When is the second referendum for this being held, anyone know?

Yeah, because getting rid of the bank guarantee, and consequently potentially the savings of the ordinary hard working people of the nation, is a move that will be popular.

Hell will freeze over b4 i vote yes to this, they can not bribe me for a yes vote, or we are as bad as bertie and co with d back handers! Remember who ever controls the purse strings control the country! Do u really want our future generations being controlled from europe? Generations of irish people have died for a republic & this generation is so fickle they are willing to hand it over, it really boggles the mind! We could at least get rid of FF thru an election but if a yes vote wins it wont matter who is in gov. A few from prev gov has screwed up but that does’t mean we cant handle our own affairs!
Europe have backed us into a corner so we wud have no option but i say two fingers to europe!!!! VOTE NO 2 a 2 tier Europe!!!!

We’ve done a great job handling our own affairs so far!

wait, i’ll translate:

we av dun a gr8 job so far, dis government is :(

I think you’ll find that voting no will lead to a two tier Europe, with us as the second tier. There’s no easy way out from this financial crisis.

if you are primarily resident elsewhere in the country maybe you can change your polling station?

I live away from my constituency purely for work purposes,i am not part of the community here in anyway, therefore when it would be time for a general election I would have no insight nor interest to be brutally honest in the candidates. And as I do not vote based on a candidate’s party, rather their own merits I would see my vote wasted to do so. I think it’s very unfair that I should have to change my constituency solely so I can cast my vote on a thursday, what the hell is wrong with a saturday?

Küss meinen Arsch, Angela!

That’s some excellent use of the accusative case. You even allowed for the (ironic) masculinity of der Arsch.

genau

I agree with sticking it to merkel and co. but I think you’ll find it’s done Greece a huge amount of harm.

Genuinely can someone explain why they would care if we vote no? The Fiscal compacts only needs twelve signature and then we get bypassed.

I think it’s certain that a lot of harm has happened in Greece. At least we’re getting a referendum while they were denied theirs. All this harm is falling on the shoulders of the ordinary citizen while Papademos, who was involved in the Goldman Saches “cooking the books” is rewarded with top job.

I don’t know what the delay in them getting their last “bailout” (lol) was about! 82% of it went straight back to EU banks. If it wasn’t so sad we could laugh at the attempts of pretending EU is democratic. We should make sure we retain ours and Vote NO!

@Réada. What do you be talking about? Greece hasn’t been denied anything, they have a different system to ours, end of. It’s just like a giant muck spreader, if you throw enough some will stick. The truth be damned.

@Gary, the EU might not care, but it might be the kick in the arse the government needs to get their act in order.
Funny too the way that changed from requiring all Euro countries to sign to only requiring twelve too.
Also, aren’t these rules already there, they just haven’t been implemented in the past – and they won’t in the future.
Hasn’t Spain already decided to break the terms of this agreement???

In the long term this is the fault of the EU as a whole, rushing into the common currency before individual countries were ready is what got the EU into this mess.
In Ireland, it was the actions of Fianna Fail, builders and local councils (and to a far, far lesser degree the public spending over their limits), through corruption, selfishness, bad planning and quick fixes. But MOSTLY, through the provision of the bank guarantee. THAT is the first change that needs to be made. It will have nasty consequences for Ireland as a whole in the short term. A lot of people will lose a lot of money but that’s what needs to happen if those in control actually want recovery – I suspect not.
If there was accountability and justice in Ireland I wouldn’t have left. I refuse to mortgage my future to pay for this corrupt farce. I’m sure many others who left feel the same, Ireland’s loss.
You don’t need to look anywhere else to see the injustice that’s going on, it doesn’t matter what’s happening in Greece – just lay out everything that’s happened here in the past ten years on a table and take a good long look at it – it’s corrupt to the core, unjust and morally wrong. No amount of EU funding can fix what’s wrong with Ireland at the moment.

Is that how you’ve decided it should work? You want to judge the person first and not their opinion? How odd.

Accountability always strengthens an argument. . But I can see the logic in hiding behind anonymity when putting forward backward right wing ideas!

That depends on the outcome you would prefer.

Donal did you not hear that if we vote No, big Phil will be sending Toika, ECB and IMF employees to knock on doors to remind us to vote Yes when we do FCT ver;0.2.

I don’t think boot boy Phil is necessary this time. Sure haven’t we the lovely Lucinda. Everyone’s dying to hear what threats she’ll come out with next. The ATM one’s wearing thin. ;)

Crazy, just crazy. Whichever way we vote it will effect all of us, not just some government minster. If you want to ‘stick it to the government’ that’s what general elections are for.

Many would have loved to stick it to the government in the 1970s but instead people examined that issues they were asked to vote on and as a result we got into the EU.

Good to see you’re basing your arguments on the text of the treaty.

I’m basing my argument on the text of the treaty and the crazy economics underpinning it and voting no

that is crazy, there are plenty of legitimate reasons to vote no.

then why vote against it?

if at best all it provides is a better guide to what we should be doing – then should we not just play ball?

Why vote for it rob?

Yes paddy it’s time to get the monkeys off our backs . Theve had a good ride ,

Yeah the EU/ECB who loan us money at exactly what they borrow it at. At a rate way lower than we could dream of getting ourselves. Those bastards.

Gary, it is the EU’s fault that we are borrowing from them in the first place

We should be borrowing normally in the international markets

Yes, the EU lecture us on our finances

The EU’s accounts have not been signed off now for the 16th year in a row!

How is it the EUs fault that we are borrowing this money? I thought it was our inept governments? Arguably our inability to adjust out interest rates was a contributory factor in the building of the bubble that task catastrophically burst, but we did sign up for it…

@Patrick. I’d ask you to prove “it’s is the EU’s fault that we are borrowing from them in the first place”. But quite honestly that statement is such utter nonsense I even won’t bother.

Gary insists on trolling this site asking everyone to prove things to him. I’ve shown him the error of his ways many times, but he refuses to listen. Funnily enough, refuses to show the benefits of the current arrangement too or the improvements signing this agreement will make. Probably because they are too easy to prove false.

Sorry Jimbo the treaty will be passed

Sorry but we’ll be having austerity whether we vote yes or no. This year alone we’re spending 14 billion more than we have in tax revenue. So unless you think the we will find some magic money trees we WILL be having austerity.

Not cutting your spending is the biggest way you institutionalise austerity. The debt just grows and grows, only leading to more austerity!!!

It’s not quite as simple as that David. Endless austerity is self defeating and leads to lower growth higher unemployment lower tax revenues and higher social welfare costs, not to mention poverty and social disorder. I agree we should cut spending though so lets start with the pay of the upper echelons of the public service, countless quangos, the endless waste endemic in our culture and also the money we’re spending on bank bailouts. I have not heard one decent argument for voting yes, ‘it makes no difference anyway’ is not an argument

@Andrew. We’ve haven’t had anything like ‘endless austerity’. I suggest you do some travelling around the world if you think we have it bad here.

bullshit gary,
what ur really saying is that you don’t have it bad.

WTF do u know of other people suffering in this country?

how bad we have it hear, ya cheecky git,
u know nothing.

worse elsewhere, would u have gleaned that from your foreign holidays gary?

And most agreements from the right involve keeping themselves rich and the majority as nice subservient little poor children!

I notice your only twitter tweet is “who trades the cac eurostoxx spread?”. So we know where you’r coming from.

The point is we wont be running our own affairs an unelected German gov will! You are deluding yourself if you think any different to that!
You think things are bad now we are fckd if a yes vote wins but i have faith it will be a no! They fiscal treaty would not stop what happened from hapening again, it just allows germany & co to impose more debts and austerity on us and there will be nothing we can do about it! Vote no, europe is no longer a partnership it is a dictatorship, if they are our friends we are way better off with out! I can guarantee if any other country had a choice it wud be no well unless u are french or german!!!! VOTE NO

Like lisbon then???

Who says a Yes vote is for recovery or economic progress?
Like the previous referendums – Yes to Jobs etc…
You may as well be saying yes to sunshine, yes to rainbows, yes to lollipops for everyone!
How about Yes to less sovereignty to our parliment, or yes to further austerity imposed by outsiders, or yes to socializing of private debt. All these things are true……

How can an argument that placing more debt on countries who can not meet their fiscal responsibilities be a good one, especially when the larger countries ignore these rules and face no consequences?

Iceland wasnt fiscally responsible – they wrote off huge chunks of their debts

Their are now doing very well

Patrick, an authority no less than the minister who oversaw that process in Iceland has said on several occasions that a default such as their’s would not be a suitable solution for Ireland. We need a write down, not a default, our reputation with the markets would never recover from a default, leaving us stranded with no means of borrowing to meet our spending requirements.

Ultan, I am not talking about defaulting on sovereign government debt

just defaulting on Seanie’s gambling debts, which are not OUR debts. Why should I be paying back his debts. There would be no need for a household charge if we didnt have to pay the E£3 billion this week

The markets would actually think we were doing the right thing by defaulting on our bank debts – our reputation would be enhanced in the markets. The bank bondholders in their wildest dreams never expected to be paid back in full . They did not think a governement could be that stupid

@Patrick. We are running a 14 billion deficit this year alone. Only 5% of it is going to the bank debt. We are borrowing all of that 14 billion and we’d be borrowing that 3.1 billion on top if we pay the promissory notes. So it’s completely untrue to say “There would be no need for a household charge if we didn’t have to pay the E£3 billion this week”. Can people stop repeating this shíte.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2012/0323/1224313766388.html
“It is impossible to be human and not to be furious about this. But anger – righteous or otherwise – should not cloud analysis. However understandable, that has happened in the debate on bank debt.

Three claims are frequently made:
* Most public debt is a result of taking on banking debt;
* The economic and budgetary outlook would be transformed if banking debt could be offloaded;
* A bailout would not have been needed had it not been for socialised banking debt.

These claims are, respectively, plain wrong, wrong and debatable.”

@ Gary – you’re right on your first two points, but the nationalisation of bank debt is absolutely what bankrupted the country, there’s no real debate on that.

Arbitrasure, would you care to actually address the contents of the treaty itself instead of calling it “running our affairs prudently”?

I see you have an irrational hatred of “Socialists”, but the fact is that the compact not only makes it near impossible for a country to elect a socialist government, it makes it extremely difficult to engage in regular Keynesian economics.

It is in reality the Austrian school nonsense that doesn’t make sense in the real world, due to it’s rejection of empiricism. Just because something sounds more reasonable doesn’t mean it is. Austerity will not recover our economy, and history will show you that it never does this, unless coupled with other measures to stimulate the economy which we’re not doing.

We were not running a budget deficit before the recession. The austerity treaty does *nothing* to address this. It’s purely a shoe-horn for the ideology of Merkel and her ilk and appease these fabled “Markets”.

Gary, you’re forgetting we’ve already dumped a lot of money into the banks at the cost of public spending, and that a lot of people have lost money due to their gambling debts. If you look at where a lot of this bailout money is going, same as with Greece, a lot of it is ultimately going to foreign banks.

In a recession there’s a lack of spending. If the state retracts it’s spending as well, it causes the economy to retract further, less tax intake, more businesses closing down, etc.

Where do you suppose this budget deficit came from, spending too much on welfare? That wouldn’t explain the situation of the Nordic countries. There are a lot of people whining about socialists not living in the real world where when actual real world examples seem to escape them.

Ah don’t be ridiculous, it’s people like you who blew the country up.

I take it you never heard of the Maastricht treaty Arbitrasure? That had a clause in it about spending levels. Ireland never exceeded that spending level unlike a number of other countries. Fat lot of good it did us.

Ehhhhh – let me think about that…… that would be SOME people managed to blow the country up, a small minority laid the explosives while a handful lit the fuse. Now the minority are suffering the consequences of a large majority elected and led government who’s response is – get the dustpan and brush till we through our republican sovereignty in the trash.

Correction – that should be, get the dust pan and brush till we “throw” our…

I know you’re just trying to annoy them so much they’ll vote NO. Personally I find you lukewarm. Heat it up a bit. Make them MAD AS HELL!

Yes the rich caused this crisis!

Ordinary people had little or no ability to regulate the “markets” that control almost every aspect of our society. If we are playing the game of proper free market capitalism, then Anglo and other failing banks should have been allowed to fail and the debt should have been the responsibility of the bondholders!

The way to man up and to fix things is for ordinary people to get active and organise against austerity. We should demand a socialist economy that is democratically run for the interests of ordinary people. This market dictatorship isn’t working for us anymore!

We don’t need to justify our choice to vote NO! Many people have various and or copious amounts of good reasons for choosing the NO side. All I get from the yes camp is the oul scenario of answering a question with a reflected question.(typical shirt term right wing trick of the trade – well ya don’t lick it off the street do you) I don’t care what BS links, bully tactics, scare mongering, or abusive put down campaigns. All I care about is my VOTE and that’s my choice to VOTE NO!

We want to be able to run our own economy, not run by Germany

Simple, you shift the bank debt bank to where it belongs, and from there we begin to adjust our finances – like a normal sovereign country.

@ Ryan- Brilliantly sums up the usual mindless vitriol on this board.

@ Patrick – The entire problem we’re facing is because of OUR politicians and OUR banks – Germany is (as usual) a completely stable, growing economy. Seems like they know something we don’t.

@ Stephen- what you’ve said doesn’t make sense, shift it where? Can i assume that you’re suggesting we burn the bondholders/ Where do we get our money from when Europe and the bond market won;t lend to us?

Cliff Germany sure is but how much of that is down to their export grown as the euro being kept artificially low by forcing countries like us in to a self perpetuating circle of austerity which is slowly but surely destroying our domestic market.

Cliff, that is because interest rates for the past decade were set to suit the GERMAN economy, they didnt suit our economy – that is why we had a property bubble and bust banks

Germany is doing fine because they donut believe in inflation or that banks should be lending money in sums that are multiples of their own economy.

That being said- using the ECB to enforce us to pay bonds that they own doesn’t endear them to me fully.

The funny thing is, no one on this board seems to pick up on that as a legitimate reason to vote no, they simply rant on with no apparent focus.

@ Patrick- you’re right, but only to a point. Germans insisted on control of those rates and they were sensible to do so. Our government is completely to blame for not realising that our borrowing was becoming unsustainable and that there was no way the property boom could ontinue- measures could have been taken to cool everything down, but they were too busy cutting taxes and raising their salaries to notice.

Again- the fault is with us more than them.

Cliff, you said the German banks didnt lend money in sums that were multiples of their own economy. That is right. So what did the German banks do with all that cash they couldnt lend to the thrifty germans. They lends it to the greeks. With all their borrowing, they have now gone bust

In a free open economy, there is only one way to cool down the economy , increase interest rates. In a capitalist economy, this is the only way to ration loans. Creidit controls dont work

@ Patrick – Cheap money didn’t help Greece, that’s for sure. However their problems really stemmed from the fact that they lied through their teeth to get into the euro and they were never even close to the inflation and debt targets that they should have been. I won’t even go into the fact that not a single business person, doctor or lawyer paid taxes, EVER. Fun fact- there are more Porsche Cayennes in Greece than there are people who claim income of over €50,000 per year.
Yes, the Germans lent them money (they did the same to us) but we were the ones spending it at will and cheering every time we got a tax cut. More big screen TV’s, second homes, investment properties in Bulgaria. No one forced us to buy them.
Regarding cooling the economy- sure, the interest rate is the way to go, but increasing bank reserve requirements could be another way to go. Or it could have been if the country had a banking regulator who didn’t play golf with the people he was supposed to be keeping in line.

I guess universal suffrage is a bit too progressive for you. Get out of town you right wing shil!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representation_of_the_People_Act_1918

And by your logic – people with big foreheads shouldnt be allowed to vote at all. Your talking a load of right wing nonsense. What if someone had a well paid job 12 months ago and paid tax at the higher rate and then lost their job and are still currently unemployed. Should they have less of a say because they were unfortunate enough to lose their jobs. Or what if someone who was working for the minimum wage 6 months ago got lucky and are now earning 50 thousand a year – do they get more of a say.

Go back to your brown nosing Kenny, Gilmore et al and leave the the proliteriate and underclasses to pay for the mess created by power hungry politicians and greedy developers and bankers.

It’s not right-wing, it’s completely wrong!

Yes because we were all soooo much better off in the dark ages!! Maybe suffrage should be based on an IQ test instead and then maybe we wouldn’t have to deal with clowns voted in by fools like yourself

Pompous p**ck!! Wot sort of a comment is that?…. The lower tax contributors are probably paying less to the exchequer due to the fact that they have had their working hours reduced and are now suffering financial difficulties due to a recession that could have been avoided if it weren’t for a corrupt government! Every single Irish citizen has the VERY SAME RIGHT as the next, NO PERSON has more right to vote than another…. I take it by your stupid comment that you are in a well paid job and pay plenty of taxes which is probably why you are that f**king pissed off and think you deserve more of a say than the ‘lower class and unemployed person’…… I DON’T THINK SO!!…. Crawl back under your rock where ye belong!!!!!

That has to be the stupidest idea I have ever heard.

Arbitrasure for president!

SOME people went mad borrowing to buy over inflated houses and holiday homes and buys to let. I personally had nothing to do with it, I dont even have a bank account. NOR was I responsible for voting this shower of eejits or the last lot into government!!!!

Sweeping generalisations like this only ever come from the “I’m allright Jack” brigade.

When the pipes in my house burst I called a plumber.
When I go to restaurant I get a chef to cook my food
When my car needs a service I go to a mechanic.
When I need financial advice on taking out a mortgage or a loan I go to a banker.

In all of the above cases I pay for the service, once delivered. If the pipes still leak, or I get food poisoning, or my car breaks down who is responsible?

However, if markets crash and world economies crumble, no questions asked, it’s my fault!

If this this is going to be the tone of the coming yes campaign, I feel it’s going to be a dirty one. Why make that point at all! it’s useless and only serves to reflect badly upon you.

I’ve nothing to do with the ‘tone’ of the coming yes campaign. Yes you did say it!

You are right though, that embarrassing episode should not be mentioned here.
It would upset far too many of the boards posters that anyone brought it up, given the clear bias in 4/5 of the posts.

How did they kill that story though? I never heard the conclusion of it. Seemed to have been magically stomped out in the media.

Maybe you missed the point when I said “absolutely NOTHING will happen” if we vote No.
It is the ‘Yes’ campaign that would like us to think that sky will fall in. All the talk of “who will pay the wages of Teachers, nurses” etc.
The reality is, if the EU refuses us cash, then it is the EU that has stopped the wages of Gardai, nurses etc. if they do that then we pull the plug on the bank gaurantees and go back to the punt.

But this won’t happen. It is EU policy to support the euro, of they refuse is funds then it’s the end of the euro.

That is why if we vote NO nothing will happen. If we vote YES then our sovereignty has diminished once more into the clutches of EU bureaucrats.