Reasons to vote No 6 - No to the loss of economic policy

BY ROBBIE MacGABHANN

As the Dublin government and Sinn Féin both kicked off their Nice Treaty campaigns this week, a crucial aspect of the Nice Treaty debate has emerged. It surrounds the question of what the Treaty is actually about!

The Dublin government's White Paper claims that is a treaty dealing with reform and enlargement of the EU. Sinn Féin, the Peace and Neutrality Alliance (PANA), the National Platform and the Greens all say that the Treaty is not about either of these things - it is about allowing a two-tier Europe emerge, a military alliance run by, and in the economic and political interests of, its largest members.

The Ôtut tuts' and bemused paternal smiles from the other Leinster House political parties, who have accused the No campaign groups of scare mongering etc, is all very well but they have in deriding the No campaign deliberately failed to answer any of the real queries or concerns. These are concerns that are held by an increasing number of voters.

The chief problem of the changing and more centralised nature of the decision making processes outlined in the Nice Treaty is that the EU is becoming more and more involved in influencing economic policy making in Ireland.

These are not just clichés. It means that we are losing control of basic things like how much money should be invested in health, education, childcare, telecommunications, roads and rail.

We are losing control of the right to set tax rates, borrow money and pay wage increases. These are all crucial aspects of managing a national economy. Worse still, when the EU does formulate polices on these issues, little account is taken of the need to consider the negative impact such policies will have on small states such as Ireland.

For example, the falling value of the euro has increased inflation in Ireland. The EU is unwilling to act to bolster the euro and instead the Dublin government is being pressurised to cut spending.

The Irish economy north and south is at a crossroads. We have seen thousands of new jobs, new cars, new houses, new factories built over the past ten years, especially in the 26 Counties. The parallel increases in homelessness, housing waiting lists, child poverty, hospital cutbacks, inadequate and underfunded primary and second level school services, traffic gridlock etc are all other negative outcomes of the economic rollercoaster of the past ten years.

Now the Dublin government has an unprecedented opportunity to invest in the resources and infrastructure necessary to tackle some of these economic problems that should never have been overlooked in the first place. Suddenly up pops the EU (which never castigated the Dublin government for having one of the worst dialysis services in the EU and the lowest number of specialists per head of population than any other developed state) and tells them to cut spending. Similarly, the EU never found a voice to highlight our abysmal record in child provision, traffic management or local authority house building.

The other part of the economic crossroads we are at in the island economy is the need for massive investment in the new Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). We need to invest in these technologies and ensure global access to them throughout Ireland. Much of our economic success over the past ten years has been achieved through previous decades of investment.

This time, we have an opportunity to ensure that the mistakes of the past are avoided such as the exclusion of the west and north west from access to vital infrastructure, such as road, rail and power; or the inadequate provision of education, transport and employment opportunities in the urban and suburban estates that house an ever increasing proportion of our population.

All of this hinges on Ireland being able to take its own economic decisions, to plan and invest in our own interests in an environmentally sustainable way. How can we cede this power, for example, to an EU that professes to be concerned about the environment but funds the development of nuclear power even up the point of subsisdising new nuclear power stations near Chernobyl in the Ukraine?

Ireland is not alone in being dictated to this way. Britain is now being castigated for increasing its spending. We need to halt this erosion of sovereignty and start the process of turning back the tide by voting No to Nice.