What about the Kickback?

Wednesday, 6th June 2012

Now that the Irish electorate has passed the Fiscal Treaty Referendum by a respectable 60% of the overall vote the question of when exactly those with the real power in Europe will do something to further help us out happen? It was quite clear that quite a sizable majority of Irish voters who ticked the Yes box did so because they felt they were being either blackmailed or bribed into so doing. As it turned out the No side actually came out with a healthy vote but obviously it wasn't enough to carry the day. While all the arguments to and fro went on the Irish electorate sat back and watched sizing up what was the best thing to do. In interview after interview with Irish voters out on the street and in their homes it became clear that those who had decided to vote Yes were doing so only reluctantly and then only because they were being given no other choice. Of course they were being given a choice but to most of them it felt like a Hobson's choice and so the Yes side carried the day. Now however it is time to see what the Yes vote will actually achieve. We were given enough dire predictions of what would happen if the No vote was successful but there were also enough hints given that by voting Yes Ireland would somehow achieve some degree of financial benefit. So when exactly is this going to happen. We know that if ever there needed to be another bailout that it is more or less secured even though nobody has been really fooled into thinking that we won't have to jump through some hoops if that time ever comes. But what about now? What can we hope to achieve that will help alleviate the economic hardships that so many people are suffering at this precise moment? On the day that the front pages of national newspapers announced that the Yes side had won the Referendum it was also announced that our Taoiseach would be making contact with German Chancellor Angela Merkel to work out some kind of bank deal that would help Ireland at this moment in time. But of course we haven't really heard anything more about that. Naturally enough these things take time and however we might be to see some sort of result these things don't tend to work so fluently or quickly. Maybe though we shouldn't really be thinking in these terms at all? Maybe be should be more altruistic and think along the lines of what we have done we did as good Europeans? Well that is like accepting the thinking that if you give a starving man a fish you feed him for one day, if you teach him how to fish you feed him for life. But wouldn't a better way to look at it be you give the starving man a fish to sate his hunger and then later after he has gained some strength teach him how to fish. Why do arguments or truisms or whatever you might call them have to be so black and white and ultimately so simplistic. Why can't we get something for Europe in return for passing the Referendum? Some might say that we've already gotten enough from Europe as it is with the bailout that we got. Then again if you think of it it wasn't really the Irish people who got the bailout it was the banks for which we are paying and paying royally. We might have gotten some of the money from Europe but it was Europe that benefitted just as much as we supposedly did and it is Europe who is benefitting as well by the strict regime of austerity that this Government is adhering to. There are many ways to look at any given situation but when it comes to the economy the real rule is to follow the money. In this particular case money, many, many billions of euros have been spent in propping up the banks while the Government slashes the money it uses for public services in order to balance the books. Out of all of this who are the people that benefit and who are the people who suffer. You don't really need to be drawn a map. But now that the Irish people have gone one step further surely it is time we saw something tangible that will come and benefit us?