Why I will be voting NO to Lisbon again!

Judgement Day

I voted NO to Lisbon last time and I will vote NO again at the next referendum and I am not a Sinn Feiner, member of Libertas or, indeed, a Euro Sceptic. The media and political parties seem hell bent on ignoring the basic fact that there are a multitude of reasons why people are pissed off with the EU. I don't want Ireland to leave the EU but I want a reversion to the orginal entity that Ireland signed up to - the European Economic Community - not a Super State controlled by the French and Germans.

My most serious gripe with the present set-up is the uncontrolled movement of 'people' within the EU. I want strict border controls introduced so that we can stop undesirables (people with serious criminal records and potential terrorists) from entering this country - is that so outrageous? What is the problem with everyone seeking to enter the country being subject to passport control? As far as I can see this country is already under siege from all sorts of Eastern European criminal gangs and undesirable individuals with criminal records as long as your arm, as well as being wide open to Islamic and other terrorist groups! One has only to scan the newspapers on a weekly basis to see the number of foreign nationals who appear in our courts with numerous serious previous convictions - quite simply these people should not be allowed enter the country. Why should Ireland be any different to the USA?

I would be interested to hear what others think of this as I have never met anyone who voted to let the criminal scum of Europe swarm into Ireland!:mad:

herya

And how would passport control help with this? You can have a record and still enter another country legally.

Judgement Day

I didn't say passport control would be the answer but it would be part of it. At the moment anybody from within the EU can swan into Ireland and probably not be checked at immigration - especially at seaports - and disappear into general population. Hence the current situation whereby the Government hasn't the faintest idea how many foreign immigrants are in the country. I am not in anyway racist and have a girlfriend from the otherside of the World and it galls me the difficulty I have encountered in bringing her to Ireland as compared to the thousands of nere do well EU citizens who pour in here with criminal records. Her crime was being born outside the EU! :mad:

VoidStarNull

Your desire to preserve the "EEC" in its original form may perhaps be widely shared in Ireland. It was supposed to be clear that the EEC was a project that would in time lead to closer union, but in the Irish political debate this point was usually brushed over.

Personally I am in favour of "ever closer union", but regardless of how you view this it's clear that Ireland cannot stop the others from going ahead if that's what they want to do.

J.S. Pill

Judgement Day wrote: »

I don't want Ireland to leave the EU but I want a reversion to the orginal entity that Ireland signed up to - the European Economic Community - not a Super State controlled by the French and Germans...

...My most serious gripe with the present set-up is the uncontrolled movement of 'people' within the EU.

Even though freedom of movement for workers was enshrined in the Treaty of Rome (1957)??

I'm not dismissing your concerns about the issues of movement of people and the direction of the EU - you're entitled to your opinions etc etc - but I think you have to ask yourself how is the ratification/abandonment of Lisbon going to effect this particular area?

Holsten

They got a NO from me last time and it will be a NO again.

I agree with everything you say.

Scofflaw

Freedom of movement is one of the four basic EU tenets. It was established in 1964.

We joined in 1973.

regards,
Scofflaw

Judgement Day

J.S. Pill wrote: »

Even though freedom of movement for workers was enshrined in the Treaty of Rome (1957)??

I'm not dismissing your concerns about the issues of movement of people and the direction of the EU - you're entitled to your opinions etc etc - but I think you have to ask yourself how is the ratification/abandonment of Lisbon going to effect this particular area?

The freedom of movement for workers is something that is another issue that also concerns me - having been directly affected by cheap labour from within the EU and beyond - but not my primary concern here which is the influx of foreign criminals. Surely we have enough home grown scumbags without importing them too?

I don't have to ask myself about how the Lisbon treaty is going to affect border controls I just have to vote NO in order to register my protest at the way the whole EU 'project' is out of control.

How much bigger is the EU to become? Why stop at Eastern Europe? Why not bring in Russia, Israel etc? In fairness bringing in Russia would have done much more more for the safety and stability of Europe than all the nonsensical and threatening expansion of NATO but that is going off topic.

Another point is that by forcing the EU towards some type of Super State may well unleash all those dangerous tensions that the original project did so much to disperse. :mad:

VoidStarNull

The ESRI is predicting net emigration from Ireland to the tune of 50,000 persons next year. (For comparison, total emigration during the 1980s was apparently around 250,000). So it looks like concerns about immigration will soon be put to rest.

The numbers predicted by the ESRI are so large that they will almost certainly include a lot of Irish nationals.

johndaman66

Agreed with what you are saying Judgement Day. The sad thing is though you would be accused of being racist when you do make these valid points. Think while there may have being demand for these imigrants from Eastern Europe 10 years ago there is no way that the influx of them could be sustained indefinately at the rate they were allowed in and definately some sort of controls should have being put in place at an early stage.

With the outlook for the Economy being a continued downward spiral in 2009 and talk of 10% to 12% of the workforce being out of work can the country afford to have all of these foreign nationals on the live register? But the government just typifies peoples genaral attitudes in this country in genaral. Don't worry about tomorrow until tomorrow comes. Be careless and reckless with what you have today. And worry about tomorrow when tomorrow comes and its too late to worry and the system has already failed.

Also believe with regards the Polish they done very little for the economy in general. Very little of the money they made here is spent here and for the most part sent back to Poland. I would go as far as saying many of them raped the country for what they could get. As I said though I'm not racist and am not making that statement a broad sweeping one.

Oh yeah I'll be voting NO as well. NO means NO and the people have already spoken so think it is just wrong that we should have to go to the trouble of voting NO again with no new deal on the table

VoidStarNull

With the outlook for the Economy being a continued downward spiral in 2009 and talk of 10% to 12% of the workforce being out of work can the country afford to have all of these foreign nationals on the live register?

Well we could refuse to pay them the dole or any other benefits. But then we'd presumably have to refund their PRSI payments, and I doubt we can afford that.

Also believe with regards the Polish they done very little for the economy in general. Very little of the money they made here is spent here and for the most part sent back to Poland. I would go as far as saying many of them raped the country for what they could get. As I said though I'm not racist and am not making that statement a broad sweeping one.

An easy way to check if a statement is racist is to reword it using your own nationality and see if it sounds gratuitously insulting. For example:

"With regard the Irish they have done very little for the economy in general. Very little of the money they make is spent here and for the most part spent on foreign holidays/Spanish property/shopping trips to New York. Many of them raped the country for what they could get."

Hmmm... not racist at all. Has a ring of truth in fact.

Red Sleeping Beauty

I voted no last time and I'll vote no again. I too have no desire to give the larger countries in Europe complete control.

I predict the government's yes campaign will be successful this time. They'll say "The EU helped us with the pork scare and they'll give us a dig out if we need it. A no vote means we get no dig outs and we're out of the EU. VOTE YES"

Wouldn't be surprised if it emerges in a few years time that there was no need for the pork scare and it was a ruse so that Ireland could "benefit" from the EU.

Eurosceptic2008

I agree with you with one proviso: I agree that criminal organisations - notably Eastern European ATM scammers are exploiting freedom of movement and outstaying the welcome of the Irish people. But I do not regard most Eastern Europeans as criminals. However, you raise a fair point. Freedom of movement was a mistake for the Accession states. There is a world of difference in the implications of freedom of movement between wealthy countries on the one hand, and between poverty-stricken countries and wealthy ones on the other hand. I have pointed out a litany of false claims made by Irish politicians playing down this issue in Nice 2. The fact that they were proven wrong was a key factor in the public's distrust of them in Lisbon 1, and I believe will continue to be for Lisbon 2. However my primary reasons for opposing Lisbon remain as they were in the first place - I cannot accept the Charter of Fundamental Rights overriding the Irish Constitution by becoming enshrined into EU law (EU law supersedes national law but never has such a vaguely-worded document as the Charter become part of it). Poland and the UK have optouts from the Charter. Unless the govt obtains an optout from it the ECJ will effectively gain supremacy over the Irish Supreme Court in what areas it does not already have it (except maybe some aspects of taxation). The ECJ has no business meddling further in our asylum system. The Metock (2008) and Chen (2004) cases make clear it is on the hardline-liberal side of the fence on this issue, and it needs to back off.

Dob74

I'll be voting no as well. The fact that the government has issed over 12,000 work visa's up to october, to people from outside the EU, really pisses me off. The big shots in the EU dont give a sh;t about the work force. The treaty will open the labour market up to the whole EU. Any country that wants to let workers from outside the EU in, will be aloud. And these workers can go anywhere in europe after that. If an employer wants to hire someone from outside the EU they should have to pay a few thousand. There are plenty of people looking for work in the EU. Take care of them first.

Scofflaw

Eurosceptic2008 wrote: »

I agree with you with one proviso: I agree that criminal organisations - notably Eastern European ATM scammers are exploiting freedom of movement and outstaying the welcome of the Irish people. But I do not regard most Eastern Europeans as criminals. However, you raise a fair point. Freedom of movement was a mistake for the Accession states. There is a world of difference in the implications of freedom of movement between wealthy countries on the one hand, and between poverty-stricken countries and wealthy ones on the other hand. I have pointed out a litany of false claims made by Irish politicians playing down this issue in Nice 2. The fact that they were proven wrong was a key factor in the public's distrust of them in Lisbon 1, and I believe will continue to be for Lisbon 2. However my primary reasons for opposing Lisbon remain as they were in the first place - I cannot accept the Charter of Fundamental Rights overriding the Irish Constitution by becoming enshrined into EU law (EU law supersedes national law but never has such a vaguely-worded document as the Charter become part of it). Poland and the UK have optouts from the Charter. Unless the govt obtains an optout from it the ECJ will effectively gain supremacy over the Irish Supreme Court in what areas it does not already have it (except maybe some aspects of taxation). The ECJ has no business meddling further in our asylum system. The Metock (2008) and Chen (2004) cases make clear it is on the hardline-liberal side of the fence on this issue, and it needs to back off.

The Charter cannot be used to extend EU law, cannot be applied to Irish law, does not override Bunreacht, and cannot give the ECJ any 'supremacy' over the Irish Supreme Court.

Scofflaw

jimmycrackcorm

Seeing as we have had only benefit after benefit from our EC membership since joining - why are we objecting to Lisbon?

passive

alan dunne 27 wrote: »

I voted no last time and I'll vote no again. I have no desire to give the larger countries in Europe complete control.

I love how completely unrelated these two statements are.

Eurosceptic2008

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

Seeing as we have had only benefit after benefit from our EC membership since joining - why are we objecting to Lisbon?

Tell that to the 600,000 who left Ireland in the 1980's, when unemployment was 18%.

Scofflaw wrote:

The Charter cannot be used to extend EU law, cannot be applied to Irish law, does not override Bunreacht, and cannot give the ECJ any 'supremacy' over the Irish Supreme Court.

The problem with that argument is that it ignores the Irish context. Since 1972 our referenda on EU treaties have included the proviso that 'nothing in this Constitution shall prevent' legal acts necessitated by EU/EEC membership. In practice this has meant that EU law supersedes the Irish Constitution. But before the Charter, there were certain areas of Irish life where the EU had not intruded to a great extent - notably our justice system, most aspects of asylum law etc. Lisbon, via the Charter, changes that, by enshrining into EU law its provisions on vague "rights" such as asylum, collective bargaining, a prohibition on "collective expulsions" etc. As already stated, the Irish Constitutional context is that EU law supersedes national law. In that respect, some have argued that nothing is changing with the Charter, but that is not true, because up to now EU law has tended not to intrude to a great extent in the areas covered by the Charter.

It is true that Lisbon states that the Charter does not extent the competences of the EU, but that assurance falls flat when you consider what Gerard Hogan SC has had to say about how intertwined EU and national law are at this stage, notably in terms of the required changes in national law required to transpose EU directives into Irish law (unlike regulations which come into force without the necessity for such changes). Competences are policy-areas in which the EU can legislate - they are not laws of themselves. Therefore, claiming that the Charter does not increase the competences of the EU is not the same thing as claiming the Charter does not introduce what are effectively new EU laws covering asylum, immigration, capital punishment, medical ethics, our justice system etc. - for the latter is what the Charter does.

This is what Gerard Hogan said about the Charter:

IT Thursday, April 24, 2008

Charter 'could eclipse' Supreme Court

CAROL COULTER, Legal Affairs Editor
THE ROLE of national supreme courts and constitutional courts in the EU could, over time, be eclipsed by the Charter of Fundamental Rights, according to a leading constitutional lawyer. The Charter of Fundamental Rights will become enforceable under the proposed Lisbon Treaty.
Gerard Hogan SC was speaking at a private conference of the Irish European Law Forum in UCD last January last.
At it he reiterated many of the issues he raised on previous occasions, including in The Irish Times, concerning the charter and its predecessor, the Declaration on Fundamental Rights.
He went on to say at the conference that much would depend on the interpretation given by the European Court of Justice to key phrases in the new charter that related to the implementation of EU law.
The charter states the rights it enshrines are only enforceable by the courts when EU law is being implemented.
Depending on how this is interpreted, the charter could amount to "the most profound change" in relation to judicial review and the protection of fundamental rights since the adoption of the Constitution, Mr Hogan said.
He questioned the inclusion of certain rights in the charter, as they do not fall under the competence of EU legislation.
One example is the right to marry and found a family. He pointed out there is no EU competence in relation to national marriage legislation, so it is unclear why such a right should be stated, as it is only enforceable if EU law is being implemented.
The same could be said of many of the other rights in the charter, he said, including the rights of the child, the right to criminal due process and the right to healthcare, he said.
Mr Hogan stated the charter had many positive aspects, including that it created a proper legal basis for a challenge to the validity of EU legislation on human rights grounds, but still contained problematic aspects.
In particular, it was unclear as to when a state would be "implementing Union law" and when it would be implementing purely domestic law, given the transposition of EU directives into domestic law.
The "implementation of EU law" condition could also be triggered by accidental factors like nationality or travel, he said."......

Scofflaw

Eurosceptic2008 wrote: »

Tell that to the 600,000 who left Ireland in the 1980's.

Were you one of them? I was - and I fully endorse that statement. For all that it was bad, it would have been an utter disaster area without the EU.

Scofflaw

Eurosceptic2008

Scofflaw wrote: »

Were you one of them? I was - and I fully endorse that statement. For all that it was bad, it would have been an utter disaster area without the EU.

Scofflaw

Nope I was only a child back then, but my point stands. And if it would have been worse without the EU, why has Switzerland managed so well on the outside? I support EU membership, but on our terms. The Celtic Tiger started 20 years after EU/EEC membership and lasted around 10 years and as such for 2/3rds of the time in the EU, we were the sick man of Europe.

Time Magazine

Eurosceptic2008 wrote: »

Nope I was only a child back then, but my point stands. And if it would have been worse without the EU, why has Switzerland managed so well on the outside?

Excellent natural resources, a tradition of high educational attainment, a highly-accountable efficient government, a multi-lingual workforce, a few exceptional companies with loyal ties to their homeland. How many of them had Ireland in 1973?

Yours is one of the most illogical arguments I've read on this board in a long time. Free access to foreign markets, the political sea-change that the EU inspired and structural grants were absolutely vital to economic development and yes, these changes take twenty years to take hold. You claim that for 2/3rd of our membership we were the sick man of Europe, and you're right. But that's much better than having held that position for 3/3rds of the time since 1973.

Dob74

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

Seeing as we have had only benefit after benefit from our EC membership since joining - why are we objecting to Lisbon?

Yes there have been alot of benefits from our EU membership but there also alot of negatives. One thing that annoyes me about the politians advocating the Yes vote is that they will not acknowlegde any negative effects of the EU.
The ECB is our central bank now(even if we have a central bank it doesn't appear to do anything) let borrow way beyond our means. It's going to take years to dig ourselves out of this hole. I think it's around 200 billion we are in hac to the outside world. We also give up our fishing rights to the EU. In the coming years we are going to be net contributors to the EU.
For the first 20 years of our membership this country was not booming, in fact we were in a decade long recession. In the mid 90's things started to pick up and the EU give us 8 billion for infastructure. But as the song goes "what have you done for me lately".
Going forward there is not any money coming our way. In fact we will be sending money to them. We need to look forward as to what is coming around the next corner and stop looking back.

Eurosceptic2008

The Economist wrote: »

Excellent natural resources, a tradition of high educational attainment, a highly-accountable efficient government, a multi-lingual workforce, a few exceptional companies with loyal ties to their homeland. How many of them had Ireland in 1973?

Yours is one of the most illogical arguments I've read on this board in a long time. Free access to foreign markets, the political sea-change that the EU inspired and structural grants were absolutely vital to economic development and yes, these changes take twenty years to take hold. You claim that for 2/3rd of our membership we were the sick man of Europe, and you're right. But that's much better than having held that position for 3/3rds of the time since 1973.

The thesis that the structural-funds were a crucial factor in economic growth is a Keynesian one that I am therefore sceptical of. Remember that FDR's New Deal failed to end the US recession and that it was the stimulus to the US arms-industry provided by WW2 that ended it. Insofar as EU membership helped, it had more to do with the stimulus provided to Irish exports by free trade within the EU, aswell as a fundamental change in Irish corporate and income tax policy starting in 1989 until the late 1990's. Thing's started to go wrong when Bertie came out as a Socialist in 2004 and replaced McCreevy with Cowen who stopped agressive tax-cutting that McCreevy favoured when in office.

sink

Dob74 wrote: »

Yes there have been alot of benefits from our EU membership but there also alot of negatives. One thing that annoyes me about the politians advocating the Yes vote is that they will not acknowlegde any negative effects of the EU.
The ECB is our central bank now(even if we have a central bank it doesn't appear to do anything) let borrow way beyond our means. It's going to take years to dig ourselves out of this hole. I think it's around 200 billion we are in hac to the outside world. We also give up our fishing rights to the EU. In the coming years we are going to be net contributors to the EU.
For the first 20 years of our membership this country was not booming, in fact we were in a decade long recession. In the mid 90's things started to pick up and the EU give us 8 billion for infastructure. But as the song goes "what have you done for me lately".
Going forward there is not any money coming our way. In fact we will be sending money to them. We need to look forward as to what is coming around the next corner and stop looking back.

Cheap credit allowed business and hence the economy to expand and the size of the workforce to increase. Many of us owe our livelihoods to low interest rates as there are many businesses that would be unfeasible with interest rates of 18%. These are business that are successful, profit making and paying off their loans while providing gainful employment. The problem was not low interest rates the problem was reckless lending to borrowers who could not afford the loans.

You also have to be incredibly selfish to acknowledge all the good the EU has done for our country and now tell them to feck off because we are coming into a position when we might have to help others who are in a similar position to where we were in times past.

Scofflaw

Eurosceptic2008 wrote: »

The thesis that the structural-funds were a crucial factor in economic growth is a Keynesian one that I am therefore sceptical of. Remember that FDR's New Deal failed to end the US recession and that it was the stimulus to the US arms-industry provided by WW2 that ended it. Insofar as EU membership helped, it had more to do with the stimulus provided to Irish exports by free trade within the EU, aswell as a fundamental change in Irish corporate and income tax policy starting in 1989 until the late 1990's. Thing's started to go wrong when Bertie came out as a Socialist in 2004 and replaced McCreevy with Cowen who stopped agressive tax-cutting that McCreevy favoured when in office.

It's nice to see that somebody believed Bertie.

amused,
Scofflaw

Dob74

sink wrote: »

Cheap credit allowed business and hence the economy to expand and the size of the workforce to increase. Many of us owe our livelihoods to low interest rates as there are many businesses that would be unfeasible with interest rates of 18%. These are business that are successful, profit making and paying off their loans while providing gainful employment. The problem was not low interest rates the problem was reckless lending to borrowers who could not afford the loans.

You also have to be incredibly selfish to acknowledge all the good the EU has done for our country and now tell them to feck off because we are coming into a position when we might have to help others who are in a similar position to where we were in times past.

Why shouldn't we vote out of self interest. I am not going to vote to please someone in Germany, France or any other country. I don't expect them to care about me either. And if you think they care about Ireland you need your head examined. So what if the EU did some good, aren't we buying french wine, german cars they didn't give us the money and expect nothing in return.
Cheap credit caused this economy to over inflate. It pushed up prices to ridiculous levels and now unemployment is about to go through the roof. Most of the firms started in the boom will be laying off there irish staff and keeping there lower paid non-irish workers. So I ask the simple question where is the EU bringing us.

Time Magazine

Eurosceptic2008 wrote: »

The thesis that the structural-funds were a crucial factor in economic growth is a Keynesian one that I am therefore sceptical of.

Your tendency to label might be part of your problem. Firstly, it's not Keynesian. The Keynesianism you speak of is where a fiscal stimulus is orchestrated by the government in an attempt to boost aggregate demand in an dynamic optimisation process. The structural grants, on the other hand, were effectively an investment by our European neighbours in Irish human- and physical-capital. That's entirely different to hoping aggregate demand can be sustainable when upheld by government intervention. Don't trust me, read some of the literature on it:

Economy of Ireland 8e p.38 wrote:

Although about two thirds of EU transfers to Ireland are farm-related, the remaining third consists mainly of transfers from the 'structural funds' ... Ireland's total net receipts from the EU stood at about 6 per cent of GDP annually from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s ... The transfers provided an immediate boost to incomes, helped equip the country with a more productive infrastructure ... and may have improved local capacity to identity and implement worthwhile projects.

A model of success, The Economist, Oct 16 2004 wrote:

Money from the EU helped, of course.

Breathnach (1998) European Urban and Regional Studies wrote:

Additional contributors to Ireland's economic growth have been macroeconomic stabilization, EU funding, and expansion of tourism and indigenous industry

I suggest you read Barry (1999) Understanding Ireland’s Economic Growth and Sweeney (2000) The Celtic Tiger: Ireland's Continuing Economic Miracle. Read Honohan & Walsh (2002) and, more importantly, Blanchard's reply (2002).

Remember that FDR's New Deal failed to end the US recession and that it was the stimulus to the US arms-industry provided by WW2 that ended it.

This has nothing to do with the Lisbon Treaty. Being against large fiscal stimuli is entirely different to concluding that infrastructural grants worked in Ireland's case.

Insofar as EU membership helped, it had more to do with the stimulus provided to Irish exports by free trade within the EU, aswell as a fundamental change in Irish corporate and income tax policy starting in 1989 until the late 1990's.

That'd be the "free access to foreign markets" and "the political sea-change that the EU inspired" bit that I mentioned, then.

Interesting how you began by suggesting that the EU didn't help economic development in Ireland, and end by arguing over part of membership mattered most.

sink

Dob74 wrote: »

Why shouldn't we vote out of self interest. I am not going to vote to please someone in Germany, France or any other country. I don't expect them to care about me either. And if you think they care about Ireland you need your head examined. So what if the EU did some good, aren't we buying french wine, german cars they didn't give us the money and expect nothing in return.

Yes and they showed very good foresight, we are now contributing to the German and French economies by buying their exports and also by exporting to them and establishing our operations in their countries. We have collectively and mutually benefited by coming together. Why do you not wish to continue along the same track, one which has proven to be very beneficial? It seems you would rather prefer to ignore the potential benefits of expanding the single market and give into some irrational fear about foreigners taking our jobs.

Dob74 wrote: »

Cheap credit caused this economy to over inflate. It pushed up prices to ridiculous levels and now unemployment is about to go through the roof. Most of the firms started in the boom will be laying off there irish staff and keeping there lower paid non-irish workers. So I ask the simple question where is the EU bringing us.

Speculation caused this economy to inflate. Every bank, every developer, everyone who bought a second property in recent years speculated that house prices would continue to rise even though that was impossible. Granted it would have not been possible without cheap credit but cheap credit also allows for sustainable economic growth. It's like arguing to tear up the roads to stop people speeding.

Eurosceptic2008

The Economist wrote:

Interesting how you began by suggesting that the EU didn't help economic development in Ireland, and end by arguing over part of membership mattered most.

We could have gotten the free trade via an Association agreement like those of Switzerland and Norway of course, so EU membership itself wasn't a prerequisite for obtaining tariff-less access to the European market.

amacachi

Why do people like to type "no" in capitals? I for one will be voting YES:rolleyes:

To be perfectly honest if the vote was to allow the IMF in to sort this joke of a country out then I'd vote yes.

Hell even the BS arguments against the Treaty are things that I would vote for. I'd sooner have some german lad who knows what he's doing running the show than some irish tool who hasn't a clue what he's at.

That's all just a dream alas.

Time Magazine

You completely ignored the rest of my post. I'll take it you have no response, then.