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With the ballot in both hands
Read more about: Europe, Law, Referenda, Youth
Maybe we should have called the blog IrishElections.com. Bertie has indicated today that he envisages 2 referenda next summer: the necessary ratification of the EU amending treaty, and the children’s rights referendum. As he says the logic is to roll them together, but it does make one wonder what exactly the rush was for the latter back in Spring of this year if it can now wait another year. As for the EU vote, the ICTU has laid down some preliminary markers of their attitude to it. There’s also the risk that the deteriorating economic and fiscal positions could feed into the public’s attitude to the EU vote.
i suppose the positive vibes which Bertie hoped to accrue with the march referendum is now hoped to be passed on to the EU referendum as debate is more interested in the local rather than the EU and one piggybacks on the other?
The finance problem was signalled ages ago by the IMF and others, this slowdown is no surprise but it poses a big policy problem to the government in terms of delivering NDP and other promises made only a few weeks ago. Things cant be so different now as they were when promises were made, it will be interesting to see how they organise the spending over the coming years.