Unanimously.
WE R CHANGE IRELAND!

good for them. apparently the House of Lords in England has decided that the British would not get a similar chance to vote on the treaty. thank god for the Irish today.

The vote No campaign was run by a collective of extreme far right and left groups who conducted a massive campaign of misinformation which consisted of blatant lies and fear mongering.
They were succesful among the working class, 80% voted no.

This group included Sinn Fein you'll be happy to hear Billy, the socialist party also known as the political wing of the IRA, left wing terrorists.

Every political party, (except the socialists) the church, unions all supported a yes vote.

VERY interesting. I'm not sure quite what to make of it, but very interesting nonetheless.

Billy is the second best troll I have ever seen.

Also, this has too many words in it.

Quick rundown for the lazy or bored: EU heads want to pass a block of amendments without the opportunity for citizens to vote in favour or against them. The Irish system prevents them from doing that so the Irish get to vote on it.

I can't see how mentioning that major political parties and the church were for a yes vote does anything other than to confirm that political parties don't represent the people, and that the church has kept to it's good ole stance of supporting totalitarianism.

Even when the masses are wrong, it's better to keep their rights to be involved in the political process, than to remove them entirely.

Someone needs to educate people so they realize what a danger democracy and (even when psuedo-false) liberty are to the human psyche. Just my opinion.

It's terrifying that it's come to this. God bless Ireland.

I bet I wouldn't read it either. In the future all treaties will be made in the format of ten minute videos with pop up ads.

It's interesting to note that most of the opinions in this thread will be modelled after what somebody politically motivated will have told them about the situation.

but anyway,this is my (european) POV : more and more EU citizens come to think that europe as it is now is a threat to their governments' sovereignty and that they'll lose their powe of decision in favour of a supranational government that will answer more to lobbyist and powerful corporations that to its citizen best interest.

Case in point: The EU ministers just met with Bush and decided sanctions agains Iran (while the majority of EU citizen are probably against that)

And all he says about the unreadability of the treaty and the sneakyness of the "small treaty" is sadly true.