Like Ireland, the Franco-German dominated ECB must share some of the blame, as must open-door immigration from the Accession States to pouring oil on an already overheating property-market. Of course, I blame the politicians, not the immigrants.

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Ireland has improved so much since joining the EU and FF and their clients do not get away with half as much as they did in the past. I'll go with the observable facts rather than the paranoid delusions if it's all the same with you

They don't?

Do the letters N, A, M, and A mean anything to you?

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How many banks do we own today?

WELL SAID

And remember that the economy is always going UP and DOWN. Once we're through with this one, another will come.

At least we are discussing it openly and if it goes through, we will be watching it like a hawk. In the past they didn't even need NAMA to make 50% tax rates with 0 service, they just did and then distracted everyone's attention by pointing out what the Brits were doing in NI.

I'm voting No because the EU is committed to Free Market economics, which will mean the Irish government will continue to privatise essential services like health, water, electricity, education using the excuse that these are EU directives. This is the excuse McCreevy used to privatise the ESB, and the excuse Harney will continue to use to destroy our public health service.

What you say about our government is true. I think we are finally opening our eyes to just how incompetent and dishonest the governments we elect have been. 1916 and 1922 gave us our freedom (in the South) and the opportunity to create a republic of equal citizens (as Connolly intended). Today we live in a tinpot banana republic, which is run for the benefit of a small group of enormously wealthy individuals. These individuals effectively own our government and tell it what to do, as opposed to the other way around. They have been allowed to take ownership with the connivance of gombeen politicians like Bertie Ahern. Voting Yes won't change that, voting in a government that is not compromised by its close relationship with the super-rich will.

Watching it like a hawk with no claws watches the would-be prey laughing at it.

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How many banks do we own today?

The ECB is not to blame. Low interest rates did not align with Ireland's position on the economic curve relative to that of Germany and France. Mitigating action could have been taken, particularly regarding the availability of credit. "Light touch" (ie. F*ck all!) regulation in the financial sector fanned the flames and in that manner, our banking sector failed totally. The ECB was not the regulator of our financial sector. It didn''t help that such absence of regulation and failure to take responsibility resulted in one of our banks, now nationalised, was nothing more than a criminal slush fund.

The ECB will continue to be Franco-German dominated. Get used to it.

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A country which refuses to enforce its own laws has no future.

I don't fear the EU/Lisbon Treaty precisely because no member state is or wants to be governed from Brussels and therefore it will not happen. The OP plays into 'No' hands by raising this as a possibility. Look at the key areas of public policy that really affect our lives - health, education, tax, justice - the vast majority of these areas are governed by the Irish for the Irish (for better or for worse). Even regarding the economy, where the EU has a massive influence, it is our own policies and practices that have first elevated us then latterly damned us.

We have the talent to govern ourselves and it is self-damning racism to suggest otherwise. However we have a stagnant political system that over-centralises power and does not elevate genuine leaders to the top. The EU/Lisbon have nothing to do with that.

Pride in ourselves or despair at our government?

Today tests the dominant national feeling.

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How many banks do we own today?