The people have spoken loudly and rejected the Lisbon Treaty for any number of reasons difficult to define inside or outside these shores. They have delivered a shock of cataclysmic proportions to the political establishment at home and to the governments and peoples in the 26 other member states across the European Union. The result catapults Ireland into the epicentre of a new crisis for the EU and its future.
So decisive was the outcome that the president of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso was giving a press conference, before the official result was announced, urging the Taoiseach Brian Cowen to offer a way forward on Ireland's position at the EU summit in Brussels next Thursday and Friday. The question is immediately raised as to whether we stay at the centre of EU decision-making or move to the fringes as a marginal player with a declining influence.
The outcome of the referendum will be parsed and analysed in detail at home and in European capitals in the coming days. It would be wrong to interpret it as an anti-EU membership vote. It would be a grave mistake also to believe or claim that the voters did not know the implications of what they were doing. They did. The findings of the Irish Times/TNS mrbi opinion poll laid the voting trends and their fall-out before them starkly a week ago. Unlike the first Nice Treaty referendum in 2001, the majority of those who bothered to vote on Lisbon did so with full knowledge of, and consent to, the immediate consequences
The result is regrettable. It is bad for Europe and worse for Ireland. But, it must be respected by the Government and the main political parties. The disparate No campaigners must be congratulated for the effectiveness of their campaign even if, in many cases, it was based on a gross and dishonest misrepresentation of some of the issues at stake.
So where now Ireland's place in Europe and what future - if any - for this draft of the Lisbon Treaty? Mr Barroso and the joint statement from President Sarkozy and Chancellor Merkel have offered a conciliatory response to the referendum result. The process of ratifying the Lisbon Treaty will continue in other member states while the EU awaits a considered judgment from Mr Cowen on the Irish position.
Mr Cowen is put in a difficult place. He is about to be introduced as the new Taoiseach at the Heads of Government summit next week. He would wish that he could have had a more propitious introduction. He is challenged to produce proposals to amend the Lisbon Treaty which would be acceptable, simultaneously, to the Irish electorate and to our European partners.
This referendum became the repository of the ills of all lobby groups, national and international. It would be easy for the Government to move forward if there were only one or two issues which influenced the referendum. It would be helpful if Sinn Féin and Libertas, both of whom claim that they are not anti-EU, could say how Ireland could get a better deal. There is a cloud with no silver lining in sight.