How can Lisbon II be defeated.

[Adrian Wainer]

Lisbon II will not create one single Job. Lisbon II will not safeguard one single Job II. It will inevitably create increased bureaucracy that will add to the tax and administrative burden on small and medium enterprises, which are the key to getting the Celtic Tiger restored to full health. Furthermore and this the critical issue, Lisbon II diminishes the sovereignty of the individual nation states and places an undemocratic centralized structure in their place, which is at best a benevolent dictatorship and might well evolve in to a nightmare of unimaginable proportions. Lisbon II is unnecessary and it is being attempted to be put in place by undemocratic means to service the desires and requirements of elites.

Say No to Lisbon now because if you say yes, if you try to say No after that, you might be doing it in a concentration camp on the way to the gas chambers.

Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer

[FutureTaoiseach]

You have repeatedly made this point and it has been corrected but as usual you choose to ignore. Croatian accession or any other accession is not required. The amendments would be tacked on to an accession treaty for simplicity but they can be brought in on there own if required. The important thing is that a legal requirement will be made to bring them in when the first opportunity arises

There is no convincing reason for them not adding the assurances to the Lisbon Treaty other than bad faith on their part. These include many of the same politicians who broke their promises to hold referendum on the EU Constitution/Lisbon Treaty. If they lie to their own peoples, how can we trust them not to lie to us?

The nations of the EU have respected the Irish NO. Huge efforts are being made to keep Ireland on board.

They are disrespecting the Irish no. They are not changing as much as a syllable of the Treaty. That is not respect that is contempt.

We must decide what is best for ourselves. French, dutch, Polish, Czech and UK voters could have voted for Libertas. French voters could have punished Sarko they did the opposite.

Yes - we must decide what is best for ourselves. We did that last year by rejecting the Lisbon Treaty. You want to have it both ways. The expansion of Qualified Majority Voting will mean others deciding what is best for ourselves irrespective of the wishes of our own govt and people. You want to have it both ways with respect to whether we have the right to act independently based on our interests.

Mix this with your point below that the Tories in the UK also don't want Lisbon brought in and you are on a winner alright!!
You can always win votes by playing a nationalist and anti-immigrant card but I feel that these voters are already in your bag.
The nations of the EU have respected the Irish NO. Huge efforts are being made to keep Ireland on board.

The Anglophobic card is outdated in the post-Troubles context. It's also ironic coming from an elite that talks constantly about 'uniting Europe' and being 'at the heart of Europe'. You're side is not above a level of xenophobia itself, yet see fit to lecture the no campaign on it. The hypocrisy is incredible.

[Adrian Wainer]

what do you mean? if you want on demand abortion in catholic Ireland vote yes otherwise vote no

If you do want state enforced abortion on pregnant women contrary to their wishes, vote yes to Lisbon II.

Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer

[Edo]

How can Lisbon II be defeated?

Very easy - just one big poster with the Taoiseach on it saying " I agree with this and think its a good thing"

Its already a foregone conclusion - Lisbon's time has been and gone - it was a treaty that went out of its way to offend nobody - yet didn't please anybody - and the EU and the nation states that make it up have far more pressing problems than a 284 page treaty that ,in the real world, actually effected very little other than a few structural and insititutional reforms.

Its not a matter of life and death or overwhelming urgency - 99% of all the hysterical bluster from both the Yes and No camps was just that - hysterical OTT nonsense.

I can already tell you that the FG and Labour grassroots will not be out campaigning for this "amended" treaty - and you can take that to the bank.

Time to bury the treaty and go back to actually making the existing arrangements work more effectively and bed down all the changes and additions that have been added since 1993.- a new treaty is not needed for many of the reforms and better practice and simply better communications between the EU, its nationstates and its people that is needed at this moment in time.

Adidos to Lisbon and Hello to the Big Conversation on the real future of Europe

[MaighEoGoDeo]

I really can't stand it when the Yes side try to undermine the arguments made by the No side. When a person says they're voting 'No' because of the danger of abortion being legalised in Ireland at some date in the future under the treaty, they are immediately treated as a person who hasn't the foggiest idea about Lisbon. I find this rather ironic to say the least. It is CLEARLY stated in the Lisbon Treaty that it will make the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights legally binding in all the member states. A charter that would ultimately, working alongside the European Court of Justice, have the power to decide on matters such as abortion, gay marraige and euthanasia in our country. So, really I cannot see the logic in ridiculing people who have sincere worries about this treaty because they are the ones who are correct. They are the ones who have gone to the bother of trying to understand the treaty which is more than I can say for the Yes side.

Another point which I feel very strongly about is that rejecting the Lisbon Treaty has absolutely no affect on our economic circumstances. This has been repeatedly used by the Yes side as a means for gaining desperate support. If anything, the treaty would have a negative affect on our economy, the burden of which would be felt by the workers. It was decided by the European Court of Justice on December 18th 2007 that a company based in one EU state can bring migrant workers to another country and pay them no more than the minimum wage. This means that Irish workers who currently work in any business, shop, restaurant, hotel, etc, whose base is in another country in the European Union ,will be given an ultimatum. Either lose your job or agreed to be paid no more than the minimum wage. Companies can easily replace Irish workers' jobs with migrant workers who can't be paid more than the minimum wage anyway. Trade Unions' efforts to take action against foreign companies paying wages lower than the normal national rates have been outlawed which is also a violation of the rights of the migrant workers. Can you honestly argue that in this current economic climate that businesses are going to keep paying Irish workers more than they have to, that is more than the minimum wage? Aren't our workers currently under enough pressure trying to make ends meet without being forced to live on minimum wage? Politicians throughout Europe have called this 'wage dumping', and that's exactly what it is. I am extremely surprised that this example of one of the purely disastrous aspects of the treaty has not been highlighted more often as it is obviously a major issue.

What I find quite obvious from the few people I know who did vote Yes, is that they say the government and Fine Gael/Labour must know what they are talking about with regard to accepting the treaty. In fact, one of my teachers even told me that these politicians have to go through every single word of the treaty before even suggesting to the people how to vote! I nearly fell off my seat with the laughter! Are these the same politicians who didn't even bother to read the treaty? Our Taoiseach who casually declared he hadn't even looked at it?

Honestly, there are so many more negative points to this treaty that it beggars belief and how an Irish man or woman can say that the treaty is good for Ireland is beyond me.

[Trampas]

How can Lisbon II be defeated?

Very easy - just one big poster with the Taoiseach on it saying " I agree with this and think its a good thing"

I'll go with that. The same Taoiseach while Minister for Foreign Affairs also thought it was a good thing to throw open our labour market to 75 million East Europeans even though he knew that the vast majority of the other EU-15 states would be invoking the 7 year derogation.

And of course a vote for Lisbon is a vote for endless EU enlargement, including the accession of Turkey.

[discosunbeams]

I suppose they could try telling a pack of lies like last time. Though with the legal guarantees this time, that stunt is less likely to work.

Oh how shameful it is people think like you. People voted NO because members of the YES side didn't even READ the Treaty, people were not given proper and UNDERSTANDABLE information regarding what the Treaty was about and with a government as corrupt as ours I don't think it should be trusted anyway.

[marmurr1916]

I really can't stand it when the Yes side try to undermine the arguments made by the No side. When a person says they're voting 'No' because of the danger of abortion being legalised in Ireland at some date in the future under the treaty, they are immediately treated as a person who hasn't the foggiest idea about Lisbon. I find this rather ironic to say the least. It is CLEARLY stated in the Lisbon Treaty that it will make the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights legally binding in all the member states. A charter that would ultimately, working alongside the European Court of Justice, have the power to decide on matters such as abortion, gay marraige and euthanasia in our country. So, really I cannot see the logic in ridiculing people who have sincere worries about this treaty because they are the ones who are correct. They are the ones who have gone to the bother of trying to understand the treaty which is more than I can say for the Yes side.

Utter bollox and a perfect example of why people on the No side are sometimes ridiculed.

The Maastricht Protocol makes it very clear in simple, unambiguous language that 'Nothing' in the EU treaties, including the Charter of Fundemental Rights, whose legal basis is the EU treaties, can interfere with Ireland's constitutional position on abortion.

Another point which I feel very strongly about is that rejecting the Lisbon Treaty has absolutely no affect on our economic circumstances. This has been repeatedly used by the Yes side as a means for gaining desperate support. If anything, the treaty would have a negative affect on our economy, the burden of which would be felt by the workers. It was decided by the European Court of Justice on December 18th 2007 that a company based in one EU state can bring migrant workers to another country and pay them no more than the minimum wage. This means that Irish workers who currently work in any business, shop, restaurant, hotel, etc, whose base is in another country in the European Union ,will be given an ultimatum. Either lose your job or agreed to be paid no more than the minimum wage. Companies can easily replace Irish workers' jobs with migrant workers who can't be paid more than the minimum wage anyway. Trade Unions' efforts to take action against foreign companies paying wages lower than the normal national rates have been outlawed which is also a violation of the rights of the migrant workers. Can you honestly argue that in this current economic climate that businesses are going to keep paying Irish workers more than they have to, that is more than the minimum wage? Aren't our workers currently under enough pressure trying to make ends meet without being forced to live on minimum wage? Politicians throughout Europe have called this 'wage dumping', and that's exactly what it is. I am extremely surprised that this example of one of the purely disastrous aspects of the treaty has not been highlighted more often as it is obviously a major issue.

What has that got to to with the Treaty of Lisbon? How could a court case have been decided on the basis of a Treaty that is not in force and was not in force in 2007?

What I find quite obvious from the few people I know who did vote Yes, is that they say the government and Fine Gael/Labour must know what they are talking about with regard to rejecting the treaty. In fact, one of my teachers even told me that these politicians have to go through every single word of the treaty before even suggesting to the people how to vote! I nearly fell off my seat with the laughter! Are these the same politicians who didn't even bother to read the treaty? Our Taoiseach who casually declared he hadn't even looked at it?

Honestly, there are so many more negative points to this treaty that it beggars belief and how an Irish man or woman can say that the treaty is good for Ireland is beyond me.

Please point out, article by article, word by word, the negative parts of the Treaty of Lisbon, especially for Ireland.

[Murph]

LEGAL GUARANTEES - Have we got them -are we likley to get them? -I doubt it!

Yet the fact that our government pays lip service to them -tells me clearly that the original treaty was seriously flawed to begin with, and they lied the whole time and are doing so now. That is why they will fail again - Bring it on!

Labour would want to thread around this one very carefully or they might end up with a big credibility problem, especially after the verdict it passed on the outcome of the last referendum!

[Limerick Lad]

Mix this with your point below that the Tories in the UK also don't want Lisbon brought in and you are on a winner alright!!
You can always win votes by playing a nationalist and anti-immigrant card but I feel that these voters are already in your bag.
The nations of the EU have respected the Irish NO. Huge efforts are being made to keep Ireland on board.

On the BBC this lunchtime Ken Clarke on behalf of the Conservative Party reiterated that it was his party's policy not to revisit the Lisbon Treaty if it ratified by the Irish people and highlighted some of the idiocies (lies) that were used to persuade the Irish to vote no at the last referendum, such as the enforced introduction of abortion in Ireland and conscription to a European Army.