The "Irish Guarantees" on Lisbon - are They Enough?

Trying times indeed. I'm wondering how much propaganda wars are going on now already out there on the Netsphere and elsewhere about all these economic themes ? It's still quite convincing and enticing when you hear the No arguments but the biggest impetus to the Yes side is the world of shite we're sinking into. Sorry but am I being too negative ?

It's a fact that our banks owe 110 billion - does tonys think that that will get solved by calling sidewinder a charlatan ? I believe those figures were what came out of the mouths of Morgan Kelly and McWilliams on two seperate occasions on Prime Time. The debt could be more. And in the SBP today it's saying that our deficit in the EU is the sharpest the EU has seen so far.

This atmosphere could carry Lisbon II now ... and people might be focusing less on some abortion and neutrality guarantees by then. Jaysus we must seem like a pure annoyance to the EU with what is storming around in the world - are we really so important ? I fear they could pull the ejector seat in a shot.

Auditor #9 wrote:

Trying times indeed. I'm wondering how much propaganda wars are going on now already out there on the Netsphere and elsewhere about all these economic themes ? It's still quite convincing and enticing when you hear the No arguments but the biggest impetus to the Yes side is the world of shite we're sinking into. Sorry but am I being too negative ?

It's a fact that our banks owe 110 billion - does tonys think that that will get solved by calling sidewinder a charlatan ? I believe those figures were what came out of the mouths of Morgan Kelly and McWilliams on two seperate occasions on Prime Time. The debt could be more. And in the SBP today it's saying that our deficit in the EU is the sharpest the EU has seen so far.

This atmosphere could carry Lisbon II now ... and people might be focusing less on some abortion and neutrality guarantees by then. Jaysus we must seem like a pure annoyance to the EU with what is storming around in the world - are we really so important ? I fear they could pull the ejector seat in a shot.

I know what you're saying - and frankly it's a sad reflection on the whole referendum process. People hold up the national referendum as if it were absolutely the pure drop of democracy, but all the evidence suggests that they're decided on the basis of things that have nothing whatsoever to do with the issue at hand - vote No to give the government a cost-free upset, vote Yes because you feel a chilly wind on your arse. And I think the Irish are good at them.

I don't know if ye've been discussing the legal ins and outs of the extra tacked-on bits to the Treaty but isn't there ground that the whole ratification process will need to be gone through again by all member states ? Even if the guarantees were enough for some, for others it might be the case that they needed to argue that the entire re-ratification process should have to be gone through again. That's very awkward.

In all fairness you can see why Ganley gets his point across - the lack of simplexity and manifest convolutedness is very easy to have a go at. Simply because it is the case that it is difficult.

Auditor #9 wrote:

I don't know if ye've been discussing the legal ins and outs of the extra tacked-on bits to the Treaty but isn't there ground that the whole ratification process will need to be gone through again by all member states ? Even if the guarantees were enough for some, for others it might be the case that they needed to argue that the entire re-ratification process should have to be gone through again. That's very awkward.

What we're getting are guarantees, which will be turned into treaty amendments after Lisbon, since otherwise the whole thing has indeed to be done over by everybody...

Auditor #9 wrote:

In all fairness you can see why Ganley gets his point across - the lack of simplexity and manifest convolutedness is very easy to have a go at. Simply because it is the case that it is difficult.

Sure - it's always been easy to propose "simple solutions" to complex problems. The problem is that complex problems usually don't have simple solutions.

What's the proverb? For every complex problem there is a solution that is simple, obvious, and wrong.