Lisbon Result

So its official - having voted yes in the referendum, the Dáil can now ratify the Lisbon Treaty. While a Yes vote was expected the 2-1 majority in favour of the treaty was greater that most expected. So what was the difference between the two votes?

In Lisbon 1, turnout was just over 53% whereas on Friday 59% came out to vote. This equates to almost 200,000 additional votes cast. If all these additional voters had turned out for the first ballot and voted yes, the treaty would have been passed by about 100,000 votes. In the 2nd running the yes vote went up over 450,000 and the no vote went down over 250,000 so it wasn't just a case of higher turnout to overturn the result as happened with the Nice Treaty. Instead people changed their minds and moved from the No camp into the Yes camp.

Across the country, the swing to Yes was pretty much even at 20% from working class constituencies which heavily voted No the last time, through to the leafy suburbs of Dublin that voted Yes the last time. The only outliers in the data are the two Donegal constituencies. In both referenda they recorded the lowest turnout and the Yes side only increased by about 13% to leave Donegal as the only county to vote against the amendment at the second time of asking.

The highest swing was in Limerick East (the city area) where almost 25% of the vote switched from No to Yes. As expected the highest Yes percentages were in Dublin South and Dún Laoghaire where both recorded in excess of 4-1 splits.

So who were the winners and losers politically here? Brian Cowen lives to fight another day. A defeat here would have made it impossible to continue as Taoiseach. Micheál Martin, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, performed well for FF and the Government in the weeks leading up to the vote. Thankfully, Dick Roche was not allowed on the national airwaves. Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore should be happy with the outcome also but in the back of their minds they must feel that this result will give heart to FF to limp on through NAMA and the budget.

Cóir, Declan Ganley, Sinn Féin and Mary Coughlan must be the big losers in all of this. Ganley came back to save the nation from itself but was unable to follow through. Sinn Féin as the only major party to oppose the Treaty did not make much headway and lost the media battle with Cóir and other fringe groups to be the spokespeople for the No campaign. In Lisbon 1 it was almost impossible to find a programme that didn't have Mary Lou McDonald on the panel but this time out they were much less visible.

Finally, Mary Coughlan's days must be numbered. As Táiniste she should have been able to deliver a Yes vote in her home county. Instead the people of the North West gave a two fingered sign to Dublin, Ireland and the rest Europe. Losing one referendum is misfortunate but losing two is careless. There is now no political reason to keep her in the number two spot. A reshuffule should happen as part of the re-negotiation of the PFG and Martin should be promoted and Sweary Mary sent to the back benches beside Bertie.

Voting Endorphin Rush

This will probably get me labeled a political junkie, but there's nothing quite like voting. As Blur once said, it gives me a sense of enormous well being and a slight buzz that lasts all day. Therefore I'm a great believer in half of the vote early, vote often phrase that apparently comes from a mayor of Chicago about 100 years ago and not Fianna Fáil or Sinn Féin as might be thought in this country.

For the last number of votes I have made it to the polling station on the way to work, usually between 730 and 800. This morning I was the third person who voted in the Pastoral Centre in Harold's Cross at about 710. This polling station is small as the electoral area is right up against the edge of the constituency, (Dublin South Central is on the other side of the road), so there are only two ballot boxes. On my arrival, the presiding officer for my desk was actually outside, still setting up a sign and removing some campaign material from near the door. However, since I didn't have my polling card it took his assistant a minute or two to find me and check my drivers license. Then with a flourish of my HB pencil I stuck an X in the Yes box, dropped it in the ballot box and hit the road for work.

This time out, I'm not attending the tally and count as I'd feel a bit bad taking a ticket since I didn't really campaign at all. In fact apart from discussions in work and a bit of keyboard warrioring on Facebook and Twitter I've been pretty much useless this time out. Guess I'm keeping it all in reserve for the General Election in November after the Green's pull the plug on this disgraceful government.

RedC Poll

Yesterday evening about 630 I got called by RedC, the company who do the opinion polls for the Sunday Business Post. It's the first time I was polled since the mid 90s when we regularly had MRBI call to the door. The first thing I noticed was that the young lady asking the questions had an English accent and added to the background noise from whereever she was phoning from it made understanding some of the questions difficult.

First up was the important stuff - Lisbon and a general election. Fairly straight forward will you vote, what way will you vote and if there was a GE tomorrow which party would you vote for. The also asked about how I voted in the previous referendum and GE so I guess they're trying to judge how big the swing is from last time.

After that came a raft of questions about the GAA. Initially it was questions about recognition of sponsors of the hurling (I knew Guinness and Etihad) and football championship (Ulster Bank). Now anyone who knows me will know that I wouldn't be much into GAA so all the questions about the role of the GAA and if it was good/bad were lost. Next was an even more useless set of questions to ask me about coffee and fair trade. Since I don't drink the stuff every single one of them was a don't know.

Finally she got back to a more interesting topic - the pay differences between public and private sector and a set of provocative statements to agree or disagree with. There were also some rank the level of service provided by the public sector in education, health etc.

It'll be interesting to see the results in Sunday's paper to see how (non) conformist my answers were. The only down side was the interview took longer than I thought and my pizza was burned in the oven by the time it was completed!

Meandering articles in the Constitution

Recently someone I know posted a bit of an anti-Lisbon rant on Facebook. It seems that he was quite upset at the concept of the Irish Constitution being chucked in the bin.

The 28th Amendment to the Constitution of Ireland Bill, 2009, Article 29.4.6. Translated: No European law can EVER AGAIN be challenged on the basis of IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS! A vote for Lisbon will effectively destroy the ONLY document that can... protect US ALL from corrupt government at home or in Europe.

Sounds pretty serious, until you realize for a second that this clause has been in all EU referendums since we joined the EEC or whatever it was called way back in early 1970s. Initially it was part of a larger clause 29.4.3 which was added. Then in 1992, as part of ratifying the Maastricht treaty the words were moved into their own clause 29.4.5. With more clauses added for Amsterdam and then Nice the clause was renumbered first to 29.4.7 and then to 29.4.10.

With Lisbon effectively replacing all the other treaties, all of 29.4.4 to 29.4.11 are to be deleted and this phrasing is to be slightly amended and end up in the new clause 29.4.6. Now I'm no constitutional lawyer but if we vote no, the old 29.4.10 stays and the offending words will still be in Bunreacht na hÉireann so I'm failing to see what all the fuss is about.

UKIP and Lisbon

I thought that we had given up on using Ireland as a location for fighting proxy wars between European powers. Last time it happened, the Jacobites were repeatedly defeated up and down the length of the island and we all know how helpful that escapade has been in Irish politics over the last 300 years or so.

With the arrival of UKIP into the Lisbon debate we have now escalated from skirmishes between Europhiles in the Commission and assorted multinationals against the right wing press in the UK. Their presence will turn the current campfire into a huge conflagration by throwing all sorts of unsubstantiated, racist and homophobic vitriol into the debate.

Much and all as I detest Michael O'Leary and Ryanair (a topic that definitely will be returned to), he was right in his use of the word "headbanger" to describe some of the anti-Lisbon campaign. But at least Cóir are our headbangers. We don't need the intervention of foreign nutjobs, wrapping themselves up in the tri-colour, with a faux interest in our democracy, when they would actually much prefer a reforming of the grand old empire with the Paddies coming back into the fold. Thanks but no thanks!

Lisbon II

With slightly less than 3 weeks to go, the campaign for the 2nd Lisbon Treaty referendum has yet to kick off. Apart from the hilarious Coir posters, at times you'd be hard pressed to even know such an event was looming. However, now with the return of Declan Ganley things might be about to heat up.

As a yes voter the first time, I'm pretty sure I'll be voting yes again this time but I do have some reservations about the whole process and some of the arguements being put forward in favour and against the treaty.

1. The "guarantees"  that Brian Cowen extracted from the other member states don't really add anything that wasn't already in the treaty.
2. I'd rather have a useful commissioner from Ireland every few years over appointing a made up position just because we need 27 or more commissioners.
3. The Charter of Fundamental Rights will not be fully implemented from day one. To my mind, that makes it an a-la-carte charter of aspirations which will be ignored if the economic or social agenda changes.
4. The timing of the re-run is terrible. Before Nice 2 we had a general election during which all the parties ran on a platform of holding a second vote. This government has no such mandate.

 That said, I think it would be a disaster for us to vote no again. It would burn pretty much all of the political capital that we have built up over the years and while there would be no immediate repercussions, we will find ourselves more and more on the outside looking in.  Germany, Holland, Belgium etc aren't going to stop their closer integration just because we don't like it.

Finally, the main reason to vote yes is to look at the motley crew that has been assembled against it. What do SWP and Coir have in common? Or SF and UKIP? Libertas and Stormfront? Nothing except their dislike of Lisbon, but expect for the next three weeks each will be backslapping the other and re-iterating the lies and misinformation of the others.