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IRELAND AND the European Union are in a great mess following rejection of the Lisbon Treaty in last Thursday's referendum. The costly political consequences of the decision, mostly ignored or disregarded during the campaign, are rapidly becoming apparent. Ireland faces extremely troubling choices concerning our future relationship with the rest of the European Union and its member-states. They recognise Ireland's sovereign right to reject the treaty but do not accept that the reforms it contains should be abandoned, even if legally the treaty can only be implemented unanimously.

The immediate decision facing the other eight EU governments where the treaty has not been ratified is whether to proceed despite Irelands decision. They are perfectly entitled to do so using their own constitutional arrangements and it looks as if all of them will. The Czech government's hesitation will probably be offset by preparations for their forthcoming EU presidency, while the British government cannot afford to take the risk of further empowering the opposition Conservatives. So Ireland may be alone in seeking a renegotiation of the treaty, even though the referendum decision raises issues of concern for all member-states. That is the hard political fact of the matter.