Sir, – What sort of democracy do we inhabit where the elected Government is openly hoping that the Attorney General will not consider it necessary that a major piece of European legislation should be placed before the Irish people in a referendum? – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Does Micheál Martin understand the proposed fiscal compact? Does he understand the difference between deficit and structural deficit? He writes: “If you take only Ireland’s case, we would have fully complied with the new treaty every year until the crisis began”, (Opinion, January 30th).
No we wouldn’t. All that windfall income for the State from inflated stamp duty, inflated VAT receipts, etc, should have been seen as exceptional at the time, and should have been deducted to arrive at the structural surplus or deficit. We were in structural deficit long before “the crisis began”.
The new fiscal pact would have been very positive for Ireland had it been in place since 2002. It wouldn’t have solved everything, but it would have curbed excessive current budget spending. There would have been less of a boom, but we would have ended up much better able to withstand the current international crisis.
Is this the best we can expect from the leader of the largest opposition party? Has he learned nothing? – Yours, etc,
Sir, – It is surprising that Micheál Martin TD, a former minister for foreign affairs, seems to misunderstand some of the basics of EU law and international diplomacy (Opinion, January 30th).
He writes that the draft fiscal treaty “completely ignores the policies required to return growth and job creation to Europe”. Mr Martin can hardly be surprised by this given that jobs and growth are not the focus of the document. The treaty, as per its title, addresses “Stability, Coordination in the Economic and Monetary Union”. In other words, it has everything to do with fiscal stability and nothing to do with economic growth, thereby fulfilling its central aim of instilling confidence in international markets that the European debt crisis can be contained. The jobs crisis will require more long-term measures, and cannot be solved overnight by 25 governments signing a piece of paper, as Mr Martin seems to suggest.
Mr Martin also says that the treaty should “change the mandate and policy of the European Central Bank” to allow it to target economic growth. He should know that to do so would require amendments to the EU treaties themselves. This is not possible at present because moves to do so have already been vetoed by Britain.
Finally, in an implicit reference to the French president and the German chancellor, Mr Martin bemoans the actions of those “who are more concerned with domestic opinion polls” than with the economic crisis. Perhaps Mr Martin should take a look at his own benches in the Dáil before criticising others? His own deputy leader, Éamon Ó Cuív, recently saw fit to declare that he was opposed to Irish entry into the EEC in the first place and campaigned against this in 1972 (Dáil report, October 14th, 2011). Mr Martin’s colleagues were often quick to point the finger of blame at Europe for everything from septic tank charges, the nitrates directive and the demise of the sugar beet industry when his party was in office.
When it comes to putting party before country and continent, Fianna Fáil led the way. Ms Merkel and Mr Sarkozy have obviously learned from the masters. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Taoiseach Enda Kenny says the Government has “no fear, concern or anxiety” about holding a referendum on the EU treaty on tighter budgetary discipline. He is right, the days of holding referendums are gone forever – we bade farewell to that process when we voted Yes for Lisbon. That was the end of democracy. Now we are in a dictatorship and we will do what we are told, or else.
There will be no referendum simply because neither the EU, Fine Gael, nor Labour or Fianna Fáil politicians want it and the Taoiseach knows he has their full support in this conspiracy to deny the people the democratic process. The fact that 72 per cent of our people want a referendum means nothing.
Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy will decide and there will be no contest. When Declan Ganley warned of this inevitable reality during debates of the EU Constitution and Lisbon II he was accused, by the cheerleaders of our main political parties, of almost everything but in particular of scare-mongering. Now we all know they were wrong and Mr Ganley was right. – Yours, etc,