If the future survival of this tottering and absurd Fianna Fail-Green Party regime is to depend on the 'new programme for government' then God help us all. What has been cooked up between the negotiators is no more than a fig leaf engendered in a political hothouse of panic. The Greens should reject it and face the reality of the mistake they have made. They will earn more respect for that than for sustaining an administration that can get nothing right.
Read More...

Three senior campaigners for a 'Yes' vote on the Lisbon Treaty, who will all play a part in the coming debate, have made strong interventions about how the actual debate should be conducted. They are Noel Dorr, Alan Dukes and Pat Cox, well-known for their espousal of the 'Yes' vote side.
Read More...

In his moderate and balanced article on the Lisbon Treaty, in this paper on Wednesday, Micheal Martin called for "a mature debate" during the next three months and one that was based on facts, not heckling. Read More...

Cowen and Martin espouse a wishful idea of Ireland at the centre of Europe. This will never be

The implications of this week's judgment on the Lisbon Treaty by the German Constitutional Court are profound for the whole of Europe and raise many questions, both for Germany and for all member states, whether or not they have it ratified. In light of the many sober messages given 'in the name of the German people' by the seven judges, it is difficult to see how the largest state in the European Union can rush headlong into the political processes that the court requires of the state, though this seems to be the intention and may well be the outcome. After all, Germany is at the heart of the European Union and the Lisbon Treaty undoubtedly strengthens its power -- at the expense of Ireland, it has to be said -- making even more impressive the safeguards the judgment imposes on Germany's politicians. Read More...

Micheal Martin and Brian Cowen returned from the EU meeting on Friday, June 19 with a terrible mess of potage. They will try to sell this mess to the Irish people between now and October and it will inevitably involve further misrepresentation of the facts. Read More...