Papal Knight wrote:

Vote No to Lisbon, and Nice stays in place, and that means Ireland loses a commissioner. QED.

But true to form, from day 1 of the campaign, SF are trying to muddy the waters and mislead people. Plus ca change.

QED? It has been demonstrated that Ireland loses a commissioner? Surely not. Why Ireland, why not France?

Or is it that you're practicing a bit of poetic license. We will lose a commissioner at some point in the future, provided the reduced number can be decided upon, but it may be decades away, according to Nice. You make it sound as if we'll be first. That's probably not your intention, but there it is nonetheless.

I haven't heard what Mary Lou said, but I don't think that she's all that wrong about a veto. At least not to the degree that she should be called a liar. You yourself have pointed to a flaw in Nice, where the reduction must remain a constant, even if the EU got bigger. The thing being, that deciding the initial reduction requires a unanimous vote. That's the same as a veto and any argument to the contrary is semantics. QED.

Papal Knight wrote:

Kate P wrote:

Quote :

One thing that I found depressing today listening to Saturday View was hearing Sinn Féin trotting out the same lies. SF told the most amazing amount of whoppers during the first referendum. I do not think a day went past that they did not tell blatent lies about the treaty. One example of the many concerned a wild claim Libertas had made (did Libertas make any claims that were not wild???). The European Commission issued a very detailed statement in response, with because it was on a technical legal point it being drafted in enormous detail through contacts between Dublin, Brussels and the WTO talks where Mandelson (about whom the state was) was. The highly technical line-by-line rebuttal was issued.

SF, who had echoed Libertas's wild claim, went silent, while Libertas as usual tried to change the issue when their lie had been caught out. SF waited for a week to 10 days, then issued a statement in the name of a politician condemning the commission for not answering the original Libertas claim. They sent that to the news desks. They knew that the original story had been dealt with by specialist journalists and the new press release issued late in the night would not be read by someone who had read the detailed commission response. The result: stories in the papers of SF posing as the defenders of Ireland condemning the Commission's dodging of the issue. Of course in reality SF were lying through their teeth - they had received the commission reply and knew all about it - but timed a dishonest press release so that anyone who knew about the commission's reply over a week earlier would not spot it. With so much treaty stuff newspapers effectively were simply churning out press releases received and didn't spot the blatantly dishonest ones.

What issue was that, Papal Knight? And how can you be so sure that SF had the reply before they sent out the press release?

Because they referred to the press release in debates at the time it was issued, then conveniently 'forgot' it a week later (even though it was not something they were likely to forget. Given that they had repeatedly tried to pick a fight with the commission on the issue, there is about as much chance of they forgetting about the press release as there was of Hitler in early 1945 forgetting he was fighting the USSR!) and 'demanded' the commission reply to Libertas's ridiculous claims even though the commission in a very long press release had already done so and SF knew full well they had.

I see. But what was the issue involved that was so memorably forgettable?

Michael O'Leary has stated his is going to campaign vigorously for a Yes vote. He has declared the shinners lunatics and maintains Declan Ganley wouldn't get 5 votes in an election.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2008/1218/1229523051079.html

From that article above

Quote :

"I'd always want to take on the shinners - the only party whose economic policy consists of robbing banks," he said.

Yikes !

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

From that article above

Quote :

"I'd always want to take on the shinners - the only party whose economic policy consists of robbing banks," he said.

Yikes !

Will Mary Lou sue for such libellous defamation ?

Quote :

Mr O'Leary conceded that Ryanair would not exist without the deregulation agenda driven by the EU.

Here the word 'deregulation' surely more means the drive to break up the monopolism that Aer Lingus was luxuriating in at the time ?

Auditor #9 wrote:

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

From that article above

Quote :

"I'd always want to take on the shinners - the only party whose economic policy consists of robbing banks," he said.

Yikes !

Will Mary Lou sue for such libellous defamation ?

Quote :

Mr O'Leary conceded that Ryanair would not exist without the deregulation agenda driven by the EU.

Here the word 'deregulation' surely more means the drive to break up the monopolism that Aer Lingus was luxuriating in at the time ?

1) You can only sue if its not true.

2) The EU deregulated the airline industry on the basis of the freedom to provide services in any member state of the Community (Art 49) and the freedom of establishment (Art 43) this benefitted airlines like Ryanair hugely. In essence, prior to the EU deregulation you could not have a situation where an Irish airline (Ryanair) ran a route from a third party country to a further country which was not its state of origin, eg London to Rome.

Ah - thanks for that on the Articles there. Sort of a bizarre situation in the first place that companies were restricted like that. So the EU had no affect on the Aer Lingus monopoly then ? I suppose not given that they had to protect their turf vigorously and would you be surprised ?

Auditor #9 wrote:

Ah - thanks for that on the Articles there. Sort of a bizarre situation in the first place that companies were restricted like that. So the EU had no affect on the Aer Lingus monopoly then ? I suppose not given that they had to protect their turf vigorously and would you be surprised ?

Ryanair's initial breakthrough to get itself on in the world was that when the Irish Government wouldn't sanction their Dublin-London route the British Government did so.

Then you had the deregulation of the airline industry, where you could run flights from. Finally you had the fact that with more stringent enforcement of EC Competition Law and sanctions on State Aid, the Irish Government could no longer support Aer Lingus in the way that it did previously.

johnfás wrote:

Auditor #9 wrote:

Ah - thanks for that on the Articles there. Sort of a bizarre situation in the first place that companies were restricted like that. So the EU had no affect on the Aer Lingus monopoly then ? I suppose not given that they had to protect their turf vigorously and would you be surprised ?

Ryanair's initial breakthrough to get itself on in the world was that when the Irish Government wouldn't sanction their Dublin-London route the British Government did so.

Then you had the deregulation of the airline industry, where you could run flights from. Finally you had the fact that with more stringent enforcement of EC Competition Law and sanctions on State Aid, the Irish Government could no longer support Aer Lingus in the way that it did previously.

And de-regulation is an important part of Lisbon and Lisbon II and the fight that will be on too isn't it ? It's very good to have concrete examples and cases.

Rumours are flying of a May 29th date for the Second Lisbon Referendum.

Any confirmation?

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0214/1233867937295.html

Perhaps a question mark at the end of the thread title might be in order, I thought the Govt had actually set the date...

toxic avenger wrote:

Perhaps a question mark at the end of the thread title might be in order, I thought the Govt had actually set the date...

Done - it gave me a bit of a start too.

They couldn't have it in May, they first have to introduce a bill to Tithe na hOireacthas to amend Bunreacht na hÉireann before they can put it to the people, and there is a 90 day window on that. Based on the fact that it takes a while to draft these amendments, the political situation at this moment in time, the Summer recess and the fact that they have a few more European meetings in which they want to discuss this matter, the date for the second referendum should be in October.