Prof Alan Matthews on the economic consequences of a Yes or a No
Posted at 1:14 pm by Owen RooneyProfessor Alan Matthews (of the Dept of Economics, Trinity) has a post up on The Irish Economy blog on the potential economic impact of a Yes or a No vote on Oct. 2. You can read it here, and there's some well informed discussion in the comments section too.
5 Reasons to vote Yes including a polar bear. And The Da Vinci Code.
Posted at 11:27 am by Jason O'Mahony1. We really have enough problems as it is without getting more by voting No. I mean, NAMA, An Bord Snip, tax rises, the economy, Jordan single again, and now we want to go and piss on our generous German aunty's apple strudel?
2. The mysterious faceless Coir are against it. Yeah, the "We live in the same house as Youth Defence but we have never met the fella" crowd. Coir: The people who thought Tom Hanks was the baddy in The Da Vinci Code.
3. For the polar bears. We can either have global climate change treaties negotiated by major players like the EU, the Chinese and the US, or we can watch Ringsend go under water. And run out of polar bears. Not in Ringsend, obviously. I mean generally. You can't move for polar bears in Ringsend, all over the place, standing on clear mints and pontificating.
4. It improves the EU in loads of technical ways which you really don't want me to list here. I mean, we'll get them for you if you want, but only if you promise to read them. There'll be a test.
5. The sky won't fall on our heads if we vote No. But the rest of Europe will probably respect our decision, believe us, and move on to integrate without us and the Brits. Great, we're effectively back in the UK. Nice one, Mary Lou. See, this is where the No campaign falls apart. They hint that they can stop the rest of Europe moving on. They can't. And anyway, would you really rely on the shinners to negotiate? The one time they were sent in to negotiate with anyone, they went in looking for a united Ireland and came out with a food safety board. Bag of magic beans, anyone?
Overwhelming majority of businesses believe a Yes vote is vital for exports
Posted at 11:10 pm by Owen RooneyFollowing on from the economists, employers' body IBEC has released the results of a survey of 500 employers around Ireland (link here), which shows almost complete agreement amongst firms that a Yes vote is an important step towards economic recovery. Of those surveyed, 86% said that a Yes vote would be "important/very important for Irish companies exporting into the EU", a figure that rises to 89% amongst companies that currently export.
Given that almost 65% of Ireland's exports are within the EU, this is as clear a message as possible that if we want an export-led recovery to our current economic woes, then a Yes vote on the 2nd of October would be a crucial step towards that.
91% of economists think a Yes vote would benefit the economy
Posted at 6:39 pm by Owen RooneyIndecon, an economic consultancy firm, has just released the results of a survey of 66 non-governmental Irish economists on their attitudes to the Lisbon Treaty. You can find the report here. The headline stat is that 91% of economists surveyed said that "Ireland’s overall economic interests would be best secured by a 'Yes' vote", which is excellent news for Yes campaigners as they try to convince the populace that voting Yes will help drag Ireland out of the economic doldrums. Other interesting stats are that 65% of economists think that a Yes vote would help bring in FDI (compared to only 3% who said a No vote would do the same) and 75% think that a Yes vote would "significantly enhance Ireland's reputation" (with just 1.5% claiming it would damage our reputation).