Todays headline in the IT

Taoiseach says he wants to 'retrieve Irish sovereignty'

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/bre ... king2.html

To be exposed as an outright lie as they will come back in the next few weeks proclaiming Treaty changes including signing away any remaining sovereignty

It's not exactly an ideal solution, but is there a (realistic) alternative? A small part of me longs for the day when the ULA/SF win power so that we can see how long they can cling to their fairy-tale solutions as the country collapses around them, but the better part of me wants to see the county back on its feet as quickly as possible.

+1

Given that...

1. The larger nations will extend their domination of the EU by virtue of the fact that they represent more of it's population and...

2. The politicians from these countries will always be more concerned what their electorate think than what the electorate in other countries think.

I'm not so sure that accepting deeper EU integration represents all the good a deal for us either. Might be the best of a bad set of choices though.

I thought it was a massive blunder to talk about sovereignty and potential treaty changes on budgetary oversight in the same breath. Kenny will have to make a very complex argument in order to pass such a treaty but he seems to be reinforcing the narrative that sovereignty is now lost and needs to be regained. He'll have to make a counterintuitve case that somehow a Yes to oversight is not a surrendering of sovereignty.

Looking back to 1973 and our experience within Europe thus far, it is hard for me to come to the same conclusion.

While it might seem witty in some circles to trot out the intellectually lazy, leftie boogeyman, you might take a look at where the disastrous policies came from. That would be the hard-right PDs, their fellow travellers in FF, their financiers and their amen corner in the media.
Now I am not as familiar with the ULA or SF manifestos as you -- if indeed you are familiar with them at all -- but a continuation of the current policies with the same people in charge hardly seems like a workable solution.

no real interest in defending enda, but in fairness he actuall said ... "retreives Ireland's economic sovereignty" not "retreives Ireland's sovereignty"...

to quote Jack Nicholson ..."is there any other kind?" but saying that if we balance our budget and begin paying down the national debt, therefore the new treaty changes wont affect out sovereignty...makes some sort of sense...but it could all have been put better ....

EDIT - might have mixed up the part about "sovereignty" with "economic security" will read again....

Sinn Féins Pre Budget Submission : http://www.sinnfein.ie/contents/21927

ULA released their PBS last week, not up on the site as far as I can see (not surprised either) but Joe Higgins was on Vincent Brown last Wednesday night talking about it which you can watch here : http://www.tv3.ie/shows.php?request=ton ... ideo=42916

Knock yourself out.

Yes, tell the IMF/ECB/EU to take a run and jump and balance our budget overnight.

Severe sharp shock but we'd get over it.

You might, maybe some folks wouldn't.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-Europe and I agree that Ireland has benefited enormously from being in the EU but that was during the time when all members were considered equal. There's an active push to change this now, to give bigger states a bigger say. Can you say that this will continue to benefit Ireland given our small population. I can't say absolutely (I'm not a fortune teller) but I would be a skeptic.

Obvious that SF are a slightly different shade of the same paradigm, except they are better at talking out of the other side of their mouths, with mantra like 'not cutting capital spending'. Unless of course they see the whole thing crumbling and getting the assets in place now, then watch the debt evaporate into thin air. Everyone knows this will happen, its only a matter if time. That may be a viable strategy

Labour and Fine Gael were just as bad.

The Troika Government are made up of FF, FG, LAB, IMF, ECB and EU.