Should Ireland re-run the Lisbon Treaty Referendum

it is needed for the Ireland to remain central to European decisions - without Europe, in our current economic climate, we would be gone already. We wouldhave been in trouble before Iceland, or Hungary.

This poll is a little ill-conceived, I think. Among the more obvious options is a question that asks
'Failed in Ireland, disliked by the citizens of Europe elsewhere, should the treaty be renegotiated to produce a document of no more than 10 pages of Founding Principles' which everyone throughout Europe can read, understand and vote on. Democracy by the people, for the people - anything else is not a democracy....

The Founding Principles would then be the basis and constraints for a new deal for Europe against which any further treaties and laws can be challenged in the European courts by individuals, public or private bodies and national governments.

We might even hope that enforcing should unambiguous Founding Principles including for example a Principle of Absolute Transparency would lead to a reduction in the bureaucracy, waste of subsidies, favouritism towards political friends/suporters...

The European Union is a great institution but founded out an unhealthy mix of nescessity and mistrust.

One size fits all is patently not necessary or wise... indeed it is contrary to another (more respectable) principle, that of regionalisation - that as much power as is beneficial to regions is delegated to the regional level. It is evident that a single tax policy is not sensible in regions as diverse as the Isle de France and Krakow in Poland. In a huge economy such as ours, not every region is in the same place on the economic cycle, have different development issues, levels of social need, resources...

Empire builders like to charge forward before the road is laid... It makes the feel like winners - but it doesn't last - the world is made up of real people who get dissatisfied when it becomes just so obious that they are no longer the considered by their leaders as their concern but as their impediment to power and 'glory'. The English spent 800 years trying to subjugate the Irish, Napoleon marched to Moscow... and back and Bush just robbed his first election (thanks coz' - keep it in the family) and went on to make a **** of everything.

Big is not necessarily bad... but the bigger you get - the better you must listen and react to the wishes of the people who voted you in - otherwise like every monarch before, you will find that power really does lie in the hands of the people and the word 'civil servant' means what it says - and leader means 'a person who leads' not 'a person who controls'...

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