ALAN SHATTER has rebuffed calls from independent TDs to delay the referendum on the Fiscal Compact, after calls from independent TDs to defer the vote due to political changes elsewhere in Europe.

The justice minister says the calls – from a subset of six TDs from the Dáil’s independent group, joined by Ireland’s only non-party MEP Marian Harkin – only come because a delay is the only thing that independent TDs can agree on.

“The Dáil technical group have, for 14 months, maintained a cosy relationship of political ambivalence in which they oppose and criticise everything but favour nothing,” Shatter said this morning.

This could not have been better illustrated than at yesterday’s press conference in which those voting either Yes or No in the Treaty Referendum or, alternatively, sitting on the fence, called for the Referendum to be postponed.

Shatter said the TDs’ event was not fuelled by concerns about the substance of the treaty itself, and that they were only calling for the delay of the referendum because it was the only common ground that the diverse technical group of TDs had.

The minister said it “cannot be disputed” that access to the ESM would be “essential to pay for basic services” if Ireland found itself unable to return to the bond markets in late 2013 as is currently planned.

“There is no benefit of any nature to be gained by either a No vote or a postponement of the Referendum,” Shatter said, concluding:

To those opposed to the treaty or uncertain of whether to support this international insurance policy to protect our future, I say it is important to remember that it wasn’t raining when Noah built the Ark.