The Lisbon Treaty: Ireland Speaks For Democracy

national | eu | opinion/analysis

Saturday March 01, 2008 19:04

by Darragh Aiken, Civil Engineer

darraghaiken at gmail dot com

In the run up to the referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, there is much that is unsaid as regards our electoral history and the behaviour of the EU towards its honest politicians. This article sets out to give voice to those Europen politicains that have been ignored by Irish media and provides perspective on the proposed referendum. Suggestions for future referendums and laws are proposed that would serve the common good.

THE LISBON TREATY: IRELANDS SPEAKS FOR DEMOCRACY

"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act", or so said George Orwell many years ago. Orwell left a comfortable job in London at the age of 36 to fight in the trenches in Catlonia, Spain. Were he alive today, what would he write about and what opinion would he have on our political landscape. Yet we did not live in pre WW2 Europe, and we might not be able to recognise the characteristics of emerging states so perspiciously presented in his writings at that time.

As we stand on the brink of the creation of a new Federation of European states, the Lisbon Treaty referendum here in Ireland in May 2008 might rubber stamp this emerging colossus. How Hitler would have swooned in joy at such luck, had he been handed the Lisbon Treaty and the proposed organisational structure of the EU. There would is no Reichstag to burn, no opposing parties to expel, and all of Europe's nuclear weapons will soon be at the disposal of a group of unelected and unacountable officials. With unification of Europe under his belt, he would likely look farther a field. With this stark reality now evident, should we not pause to contemplate what implications this association might have for us?

While seeking clarity on the proposed benifits of the Lisbon Treaty (EU Constitution) it would be folly to forget that the masters of “spin” have told a few “turkeys” and are not capable of doing so again. It was claimed that weapons of mass destruction were in Iraq. The result of that lie has cost over 600,000 deaths. Let us remember these distortions and their conseqences as the Government and associated parties (national media) pick up the pace to laud the virtues of the Lisbon Treaty.

Our recent voting record

Voting machines were first introduced into Ireland between the time we voted No to Nice in 2001 and the time a yes vote was declared in 2002. Analysis of the figures show that voting machines were used to collect 18.5% of the total votes in the densely populated areas of Dublin, Cork and Meath (Department of Environment and Local Government Website/Referendum Results). Given the collossal overstatement in the register by 500,000 and allegations of fraud in our last general election (Sunday Tribune, 11 November 2007) it may not be necessary to “plug the machines back in”.

Electoral hygene and the EU should occupy our thoughts and efforts in coming months, as we weigh up the pro's and cons of the proposed referendum issues. Some will faithfully look to our leaders, whom have gained the most air time in the national media, to utilise our taxes promoting the yes vote. Let us not succumb to the Helsinki sydrome as we battle to gain a reasoned answer on the issues.

The Opinion Poll

Others will read with intent the opinion polls. The Irish Times TNSmrbi opinion poll has sagely noted since 5 November 2007 that 25% say yes, 13% say no, and 62% say they dont know. Readers may notice that this poll is repeated a lot. The discerning electorate knows the Lisbon Treaty was only signed on 13 December 2007 and hardcopies copies have not been available to the public until mid February 2008. Yet this same figure has been repeated in the Irish Times, on the 4 & 27 December 2007 and others have latched onto it in articles since then. So who read what in November? Will these statistics be repeatedly displayed up to the referendum date?

Arguments for the Treaty

Through the papers our politicians tell us to do the "right thing for Europe", and not to "cut us apart", or else we’d be the “laughing stock of Europe", by going against "our common sense" and that there would be “no sector of Irish society would not be dramatically affected in a negative way if we were to vote no" (Irish Times). Two politicians from France and the Netherlands have arrived to our country to advise us we should vote yes (Irish Times December 4, 2007). However the discerning electorate will know that France and the Netherlands voted NO to the EU Constitution in 2005 and that the Lisbon Treaty is virtually the same as the EU Constitution. If the Lisbon Treaty was such a virtuous and progressive tract of legislation that effectively nullifies the superiority of Irish Law, surely explanations, rather than threats are in order?

The EU press coverage trend

The EU has not been shy in reminding us in national radio broadcasts that we have been in receipt of 55 Billion Euro from them. Our Ombudsman has since rapped their knuckles for the overt suggestion that we in some way “owe” them something. And what has the ECB gained from us in our use of their money via the banks et al? How will the interest payments and the mortgages from our citizens benefit the ECB? It would be interesting to see an estimate of what this single currency has really cost us.

The EU has been getting pretty good coverage in our papers. No scandals, just business as usual. There have been some regrettable policies such as demanding 19 pieces of personal information including credit card details and retaining them for 13 years for boarding all flights to the EU and back. Theres also the unnecessary microchip implants for farm animals at heavy costs to farmers. And then there’s and the retention of all of your emails, calls, and even the location of your mobile phone. We are all aware now of the "rising cost" of water, our lifeblood. Thankfully the water charges have nothing to do with our government, as their reasoning for suggesting such a notion is along the lines of "that's what the EU said". Schools must pay too and it doesnt matter that water consumption is decreasing per capita due to innovations in technology and water saving devices.

But all is not well in the EU, and the media are lacking in the goings on in their politicar circles. It is becoming increasingly difficult to read between the lines to discern what might be amiss. The reality is that there is, has and will continue to be ommissions in the media regarding the corruption that is now endemic in the EU body politic. Cases of fraud, corruption, mafia links, arrests, interrogation of EU officials, firing, intimidation and death threats to honest politicians who speak out have reached such a crescendo that more than a few whistleblowers have declared that the EU is "unreformable".

The calm before the storm

Before we vote away our ability to control our taxes, our laws, our health and education systems, our jobs, fair wages, our immigration policy, our security policies, our civil service policies and the bulk of our Constitutional independance, we could review the “character” of the EU as reported in the European and International media that you may not have come accross. It may give an indication of what's in store.

EU Accountability and Structure

Continuing from here it is important to realise that under the Lisbon Treaty and the new European Union Federation of states, we will not be able to vote for or vote out EU Commissioners and Councillors nor their policies if we do not like them. Even if all 4.2 million Irish Citizens unanimously petitioned a law that came out of the EU commission, the EU commission is under no obligation to change its policy. The proposed structure of the new EU will have unaccountable EU Commissioners and unelected Councillors, and Presidents. The unnacountability goes more so for the European Central Bank. The politicians you are allowed to vote to represent you at European Parliament level, the MEP’s are effectively toothless because it will be the Council that initiates the legislation and the Commission that will approve all laws. This style of governance is modelled closely on the Soviet Politburo as discussed my many sources, Vladimir Bukovsky to name one, who was incarcerated by the Soviets for 12 years for being a dissedent. His book, “EUSSR, The Soviet roots of European Integration” (ISBN 0-9540231-1-0) reveals the machinations of European politicians and international financial groups such as the Trilateral commission form the 60’s through to the 90’s and their interactions with Russian policy makers.

Bernard Connolly: Senior European Civil Servant

In 1995, Bernard Connolly, a senior European civil servant, took a leave of absence from his job as head of the European Commission's monetary affairs department, to write a polemical book. The product of his working holiday, "The Rotten Heart of Europe: The Dirty War for Europe's Money", still stands as the most intellectually persuasive, economically coherent and politically prescient account yet published of the development of European institutions in the 1990s, and remains "One of the most important books ever written about Europe" according to some. Mr Connolly was the top official within the European Commission directly responsible for EMS affairs. We include here an excerpt from the preface of his book so written by him:

"My crime, apparantly was serious indeed: I harboured fears that the European Monetary Union project was not the Heavenly City that relentless propaganda had made it out to be. 'If I had fears like that' said Jaques Santer's spokesman, 'I would resign this afternoon'.

At any rate, the Commission, after suspending me from my job as head of the Commission Unit responsible for the EMS and monetary policies, countenancing a smear campaign against me, denying me access to Commission buildings, posting photos of me at entrances to buildings and garages as if I were a dangerous terrorist bearing semtex and armalites, 'inviting' me not to leave Brussels, communicating with me through night-time visits from its little known Security Service, and engaging in a disciplinary procedure that disregarded all the rules of natural justice, inflicted the penalty it had in effect decided five months earlier. At the end of January 1996, I was sacked."

Paul Van Buitenen: European Commission Auditor

Many were concerned with the goings on in the heart of the EU, and particularly in the Commission. Hans Tillack, an award winning journalist writing for Germanys Stern magazine was investigating the EU Commission in the run up to 1998 as was Paul Van Buitenen, a European Commission auditor. As reported in the Daily Telegraph (26 August 2002), Mr Van Buitenen exposed the worst scandal in European Community history by disclosing endemic abuse at the top of the Commission, mostly through use of fictitious contracts to outside consultants. For being a decent human being, a dedicated professional and a conscientious citizen he was suspended, had his salary halved and ordered to face disciplinary action. He fought on and his exposures triggered the collapse of Jacques Santer's Commission. The entire Commission, all 20 of them, had to resign. However the officials accused, none of whom has spent a day in prison as a result, were suspended on full pay.

The Dutch Euro-civil servant was named 'European of the Year' by Reader's Digest magazine. He says he will donate his prize money to a fund in the Netherlands for helping other whistleblowers. Paul Van Buitenen's book reveals the whole story. He "believes that the European Union's secretive machinery is inherently unreformable as long as it remains beyond the control of an elected parliament". His resignation in 2002 was a setback for Neil Kinnock the administration commissioner, who promised "root and branch" reform of EU institutions".

Marta Andreasen: Chief EU Accountant

Mr Kinnock then dismissed Marta Andreasen, the chief EU accountant in 2001. As reported in the Daily Telegraph (14 October 2004), she was fired for breach of "loyalty" for exposing fraud and corruption. She said "I encountered evidence of structural fraud embedded in the European Commission systems. High officials knew this was the case and still is the case. I am the one who has behaved as a real European - and I have paid for it with my job". This was probably Mr Kinnocks last act before stepping down as the commissioner "fighting fraud". Mr Van Buitenen resigned in disgust at the draconian treatment of Ms Andreasen. The heart of Mrs Andreasen's complaint is that the Commission lacks "double-entry" book-keeping, now routine in the private sector, allegedly making it possible to divert large sums of money without leaving an electronic fingerprint. She found a £130million discrepancy between two sets of books for 2001. This has never been fully explained.

Mrs Andreasen was suspended from her £85,000 job in May 2002 for breaking "hierarchy lines". She contacted the Court of Auditors and Euro-MPs after superiors ignored her warnings, later telling the press that the EU's £63 billion budget was "an open till waiting to be robbed". For her trouble, Miss Andreasen claims to have been followed in the streets by a team of men, apparantly in a crude attempt to intimidate her.

There appears to be little or no recourse for scrutiny nor accountability in the EU. OLAF, the EU's anti fraud department, appears to be getting in the way of serious investigation into these abuses rather than doing anything about it. Mr Van Buitenen believes that OLAF has shut down much of the inquiry into the dossiers that he had forwarded to Mr Kinnock's office, shielding what he calls the "core of power" in Brussels.

Mr. Hans-Martin Tillack

As reported in the Telegraph on 20 April 2004, Belgian police arrested Mr. Hans Tillack, a leading investigative journalist, on the orders of the European Union, seizing his computers, address books and archive of files in a move that stunned Euro-MPs. Hans-Martin Tillack, the Brussels correspondent for Germany's Stern magazine, said he was held for 10 hours without access to a lawyer by the Belgian police after his office and home were raided by six officers. "They asked me to tell them who my sources were. I replied that was something I would never do. Now they have all my sensitive files, so I suppose they'll find out anyway," he said and added "The police said I was lucky I wasn't in Burma or central Africa, where journalists get the real treatment".

Mr Tillack said the raid was triggered by a complaint from the EU's anti-fraud office, OLAF. He was accused of paying money to obtain a leaked OLAF dossier two years ago, which he denies. The European Ombudsman has already come to his defence, issuing a harsh criticism of OLAF's campaign to silence him.

Mr Tillack, who describes himself as a "pro-European federalist", has been OLAF's most vocal critic, accusing it of covering up abuses within the EU system. As the author of a recent book on EU corruption, he has the greatest archive of investigative files of any journalist working in Brussels.

OLAF was created to replace the old fraud office UCLAF, which was accused of covering up abuses by the disgraced Santer Commission. Many UCLAF staff were transferred to OLAF.

As reported in BBC news online, 4 October 2006, Tillack wrote two articles for Stern magazine in 2002 on alleged fraud at Eurostat, where large amounts of money were siphoned off into secret bank accounts. OLAF then publicly accused "a journalist" of bribing one of its officials to obtain an internal memo. In 2008, 4 years after the confiscation of his personal equipment, the Belgian police returned his files to him. Mr Tillack has been cleared by the courts of any wrongdoing. It has been noted bt the Washington Post that by others that this was retribution for the Eurostat affair, and is more in keeping with totalitarian governments than a democratic system of justice.

Dorte Schmidt Brown

As reported by Alex Hawkes in Accountancy Age 6 July 2005, the whistle blower Dorte Schmidt Brown who helped expose the £3million looting of funds from Eurostat was denied redress for the difficulties she suffered as a result of her efforts. She has been effectively hung out to dry, having been on sick leave since exposing the fraud and has fled her home after threats and harassment (Daily Telegraph 6 July 2005). No Eurostat official has been punished for the fraud which occurred in 2002/2001. Schmidt-Brown was ordered to pay her own costs.

Robert Dougal Watt

On 22 April 202, Robert Dougal Watt who was employed as an auditor by the European Court of Auditors in Luxembourg since 1995, "blew the whistle" to the European Ombudsman on systematic corruption and abuse in the European Court of Auditors. As reported on "Just Response" his claims were backed up by 205 of his colleagues (40% of the institutions staff) by secret ballot organised by the Court. He now fears for his life claiming that OLAF has been shielding the suspicious death of a mafia related death of Antonio Quatauro. He claims that the bodies charged with safeguarding the public interest from such corruption - the European Court of Auditors, the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), the European parliament's Budgetary Control Committee, the Ombudsman - are indolent, if not actively corrupt. However there were no rewards for Watt, "he was simply fired" (International Herald Tribune, 23 June 2004).

Dawn Raids decend on EU buildings

In case you think that things have changed since Tillacks intimidation and silencing by the European Union, just last year on 20 March 2007, Times Online reported that the EU Commission offices were raided en masse the previous day. In more than 40 dawn raids over 150 officers in Belgium, France, Italy and Luxembourg, police officers swooped on the homes of European Commission officials, banks, companies and an office of a member of the European Parliament. The raids came just days after a lavish party in Berlin and other capitals to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the EU. The prosecutor's office said "The investigation involves suspected bribery of European civil servants, forming a criminal organisation, violating professional secrecy, breaches of public tender laws and forgery". The International Herald Tribune reported that those arrested were an official in the European Commission's external relations department, Giancarlo Ciotti, and assistant to an Italian member of the European Parliament and a third man who was a director of several property companies.

Times online reported on 29 March 2007 that Jos Coplin, spokesman for the Belgian prosecutor, said "There were bribes of millions of euros for more than 10 years". A spokesman for the European Parliament tried to play down the fraud.

And yet again this year BBC news reports on 21 February that a confidential audit reported to have found that MEP's had not accounted properly for the £100million a year allocated of staff costs. British MEP Chris Davies, who has seen the report, said he was shocked by the scale of the alleged fraud.

"This report is Dynamite" said Davies. He told the BBC that the document had to be placed in the public domain and legal proceedings should follow. "Let's be honest. I think the allegations within this report from our own auditors should lead to the imprisonment of a number of MEP's. I think its embezzlement and fraud on a massive, massive scale.

However the report is being hushed up and European Parliament spokespeople are declining to comment until the report is "published". As reported in the Gates of Vienna, a source close to the decision "We want reform but we cannot make this report available to the public if we want people to vote in the European elections next year"

In viewing the "confidential" report Davies was asked to sign a confidentiality agreement which he did not in order to view the document which is being kept in a biometrically sealed room. The Daily Telegraph noted that last night, after an emergency meeting of senior officials including Mr. Romer and Mr Pottering, triggered by the Daily Telegraphs investigation, a spokesman for the parliament denied a cover up.

"The document is not secret. It is confidential." He said. "It can be read by Euro MP's on the budget control committee, in the secrete room but not generally. That is not the same as a secret document nobody can read".

We think the time has long come to express our concerns over the EU's contempt for European citizens. The EU has no citizens at the moment. Now the EU wants you to hand over more areas of our laws, beginning with water carges and Carbon Tax. It doesn't matter that many scientists say that all of the planets in our solar system are heating up too. Perhaps there are SUV's on Mars. Are martians charging their citizens Carbon taxes?

The European Unions Accounts

The running joke in the EU is that it has not been able to sign off its accounts in the last 13 years. With a budget of in excess of £100 Billion, which is set to increase if the EU becomes a federation of states, it is unlikely that the accounts will ever become balanced considering that the oversight and accounting structures are so deeply fraudulent and there is no political will to reverse this trend.

Why rubberstamp corruption when we can see so clearly how governmental corruption destroyes faith in leadership and creates an apathetic, disenchanted electorate. A NO vote is a vote against corruption. If the EU can reform itself to a status of political co-operation while respecting national values and laws, then it may be worth supporting. At present this is not the case because the EU was not designed to respect nation states, it was designed to subvert them. The authours of the EU and its constitution voice this reality openly as quoted by them.

The duplicitity of Loyalty in a European Alliance

Article 9-3 of our Constitution states:

"Fidelity to the nation and loyalty to the State are fundamental political duties of all citizens"

It is our duty to be loyal to Ireland and to our people and one which the authour is proud to uphold, not for some “outdated” sense of nationalism, but because the principle upon which the duty is undertaken; the democratic instinct, to support an accountable system of governance.

Although some have made a mockery of it in recent years, there is the possibility of change should a NO to the Lisbon Treaty be secured. Under the EU structure, there is no possibility of changing those who control the laws nor of accountability for those in power which has repeatedly been proven to all whom have eyes to see.

In stark contrast to our fundamental political duty as Irish citizens is the oath the EU Commissioners swear to the EU "over and above" their loyalty to their own nations, and to act “Only” in the interests of the European Union (EU Official Directory).
Any politician who has taken this oath, will not promote the interests of Ireland or its people. On the contrary, they will act against Irelands interests and the interests of the Irish people should they be required to. Such is the case with the Lisbon Treaty.

The Irish and European MEP’s respect for the Irish Referendum

In the European Parliament on Wednesday 20 February 2008 the following motion was put forward:
"The European Parliament undertakes to respect the outcome of the referendum in Ireland".
499 MEP’s voted not to respect the outcome of our referendum, our opinion. Only 129 voted for. Proinsias De Rossa voted not to respect our rule of law.

Charlie McCreevey, our EU Commissioner, was quoted in the Irish Times on December 4, 2007 saying:
"The referendum is not a time for self-government, for putting the two fingers up at a member state government or at the EU institutions towards which people may well have some heart felt grievances".

With Mr. McCreeveys “Oath” at the forefront of our minds, we are asked by him not to consider self government in the upcoming referendum. Yet the referendum is in place precicely to consider self government and to improve upon it. The assertion that we could possibly be putting the “two fingers” up at Europe by voting NO is preposterous considering that the EU has gagged every other national electorate by refusing to allow a referendum in their respective nations.

Anyone who votes NO to Lisbon can do so in the full knowledge that they will be supporting the democratic majority of people that have been allowed to vote in 2005. A NO vote supports democracy and a yes vote will circumvent it. A NO vote allows the individual states of Europe time to pressure their governments to hold referendums. In Denmark, the government is being taken to court over the unconstitutional actions they have taken by refusing a referendum. Any demorcratic thinking Irishman should support this type of action in the member states, because it is following the rule of law.

There are blogs and video diaries of stranded and desperate Europeans that have been gagged by their governmants at the insistence of the EU and dont have a vote on European Constitution or the Lisbon Treaty. They call out in desperation for Irish people to vote NO.

Keep Corruption at home

Corruption is a fact of political life, and has been since people congregated in larger societal groups. However the larger the social grouping the more avenues for corruption and less accountable political leaders become. It is in Irish interests to “keep corruption at home” so that we may deal effectively with it at a national level. There are some whom are under the spotlight at the moment that would wish for nothing more than to be immune to prosecution for actions taken while in government. There are articles in the European Treatys that provide immunity for politicians who infringe on areas of law while in the service of their duties. If you were under such scrutiny, it does not take a stretch of the imagination to realise which side you would be rooting for.

This article we hope has set out in the clearest possible terms why the EU Federal State should not be supported, and the negative implications this will have on not only Irish lives, but on a democratic Europe also.

The EU: Its origins and destination

Vladimir Bukovsky: Former Soviet Dissedent

Giscard d'Estaing is commonly known to be the author of the European Constitution. The idea of a constitution for Europe, a legal status that replaces or supersedes all national sovereign states in the European Community is not a new concept. Tracing its history one exposes a trail of deception and subterfuge since the inception of the initial trade deals in post world war Europe. As far back as 1989, ever since d'Estaings visit to Russia with David Rockerfeller and Henry Kissinger to entreat Gorbachev to fold up the USSR, d'Estaing maintained even then that the EU would be federalised "in about 15 years" (Interview with Vladimir Bukovsky, Former Soviet Dissident and political prisoner of the Soviet Union, February 2006).
Bukovsky’s book “EUSSR” is not an irony about possible communisation of the European national states. Bukovsky had spent 12 years languishing in Soviet detention centres having spent the better part of his life studying Soviet ideology and political objectives. His book is a fact based expose of the intensions of Russian and world leaders decisions many years ago to bring the sovereign nation states under a communist dictatorship. The apparatus was to be put in place over time so as to imperceptable until it was too late to turn back the tide of integration. He now works closely with independance parties in the UK urging them to resist this emerging “monster”, because he has witnessed firsthand the devastation and deprivation that totalitarianism has caused in his own country.

Paul Van Buitenen

As mentioned earlier, Mr. Van Buitenan’s mission to reform the EU is ongoing although he was ready to throw in the towel a few years ago. He is now taking on OLAF, the EU’s anti-fraud department. He wrote a bok called “Blowing the Whistle - One mans fight agains fraud in the European Commission” (ISBN 1-90230-146-3). To be fair to EU politician’s, Van Buitenen acknowledges that there are many hardworking men and women in the EU that believe fervently inthe Europen project, and he praises their efforts and their good intentions, noting that corruption is the exception and not the rule. However he argues for a more limited role for the EU and to reduce the democratic deficit embedded within it’s political structure. It would be unfair of this authour not to note the many virtuous deeds made by these people and to brand the whole of the EU with a corruption brush. Yet it is a reality that we have a vote, and our vote can either support democratic rule in Europe or negate it as a yes vote would.

The EU Politicians: In their own words

Rather than attempt to convince you that the proposed Lisbon Treaty or Reform Treaty is based on a stealth like deception, we will let others tell you.....in their own words:

Giscard d'Estaing, Former French President "Public opinion will be led to adopt, without knowing it, the proposals that we dare not present to them directly" ... "All the earlier proposals will be in the new text, but will be hidden and disguised in some way." (Le Monde, 14 June 2007 and Sunday Telegraph, 1 July 2007).

Jean Claude Junker, Prime Minister of Luxembourg "Of course there will be transfers of Sovereignty, but would it be wise to draw the attention of the public to this fact?" (Daily Telegraph 03 July 2007).

Czech President Vaclav Klaus "This is crossing the Rubicon, after which there will be no more sovereign states in Europe with fully-fledged governments and parliaments which represent legitimate interests of their citizens, but only one state will remain. Basic things will be decided by a remote 'federal government' in Brussels .... We are against a European super state." (Mlada Fronta Dnes).

Hans Martin Bury, the German Minister for Europe, "This Constitution is, in spite of all justified calls for further regulations, a milestone. Yes, it is more than that. I think, the EU Constitution is the birth certificate of the United States of Europe." (Source Die Welt, 24th February)

Karel de Gucht, Belgian Foreign Minister "The aim of the Constitutional Treaty was to be more readable; the aim of this treaty is to be unreadable... The Constitution aimed to be clear, whereas this treaty had to be unclear. It is a success." (Flandreinfo, 23 June 2007).

Guiliano Amato, Italian Prime Minister and later vice President of the EU Convention which drafted the Constitution, interview with Spinelli, La Stampa, 13 July 2000 “In Europe one needs to act ‘as if’ - as if what was wanted was little, in order ro obtain much, as if States were to remaign soverign to convince them to concede sovereignty...The Commission in Brussels, for example, should act as if it were a technical instument, in order to be able to be treated as a goverment. And so on by disguise and subterfuge”

CONCLUSION

The idea that Ireland can not function in a way that serves the Irish people without the intervention of a foreign government is preposterous. A sumilarly preposterous suggestion is that the EU needs the support of 4.2 million Irish citizens out of a total of 450 million Europenans in order to function.

After an independence war and then a bloody civil war the Iish have managed their own affairs adquately, and for people to attribute this solely due to the intervention or assistance of a foreign entity, is being liberal with the truth. Trade in a global economy is synonamous with modernity and technological innovation and not with civil rights nor national sovereignty. We can manage our own affairs, trade with our neighbours and make our own laws and respect our own environment. We can do it as well or better than our European counterparts. No one can say the Irish are isolationists by remaining a sovereign nation with a straight face.

The EU has over 110,000 regulations, which will become laws if the EU becomes a state and it will be able to implement any and all of them should it so wish. That we would be more prosperous without membership of the EU is not a popular discussion topic, and usually meets with irrational opposition and trading of guilt type arguments, name calling and unsubstantiated claims. There are countries in the modern world, of comparable size that are not in the European Union and their worlds have not fallen apart. One could ask those functioning countries such as Norway, Switzerland, and Iceland who still remain sovereign. Switzerland has voted 5 times to stay out of the EU.

Alternate proposals for referendum

As a proposal for the next referendum in place of the Lisbon Treaty we would proffer the following amendments to our Constitution and various acts that could be passed to the government for implementation in the common good:

1. Repeal the 3rd amendment on the European Communities membership. We will never get closer or farther away to Europe than we currently are. We cannot “cut ourselves adrift” of Europe. Managed trade is not a free market. We should be competing with the larger Europen markets and not be subject to their manipulation of our national laws through “qualified majority voting” in the European Union’s political structure.

2. Repeal the 17th amendment on Government secrecy act of 1997. The government needs more oversight and public scrutiny not less.

3. Repeal the Electoral act to allow the ballots and registers to be kept longer than 6 months before they are destroyed so that we can check that the signed registers tally with checks of the people that were supposed to have come in to vote. At present, the electoral register is hugely overstated by 500,000 (Sunday Tribune, November 11 2007, and the CSO's bland pandering to this article (2 December 2007) does not explain the possible fraud in last Mays general election. If the EU wants to keep our personal details for 13 years, what possible reason can there be for destroying evidence of possible electoral fraud after 6 months.

4. Demand an official investigation into last Mays general election results immediately before the referendum.

5. Demand that a law be passed whereby the electoral register cannot be overstated by a certain percentage, and if it is found to be so, elections should be suspended until the register has been satisfactorily compiled.

6. Send the voting machines back whence they came. Give all monies to charity.

7. Send formal complaint to the EU that their accounts have not been signed off in the last 13 years and that this as unacceptable to us as it is to other European nationals.

8. Talk to our top economists who advised against joining the Euro, and listen to what they were saying then and listen to their suggestions as to how to move out of the we are now in order to protect teetering loans. We are one of the most indebted nations in Europe and many are facd with unnacceptable risk.

9. Discuss openly the possibility of issuing our own money again with a specific moral and ethical review of fractional reserve banking practices which have become the norm. There was a very good reason why usury was outlawed in the past. These reasons should be brought to the fore again in light of the public welfare. This action is in full accord with Article 45 of our constitution.

Let us not forget all those men who died attempting to wrest our country from an unaccountable government whom had little or no regard for the lives of the men and women on this Island.

Our right to vote is because of their sacrifice.