A reluctant Yes voter for vital access to funds

The debate on the fiscal compact treaty has rapidly, and predictably, gone off the rails of the treaty and onto tracks that are only vaguely parallel.

It has morphed into a debate on austerity, driven for the most part by the ideologues of the left tapping into an inchoate, if understandable, desire on all our parts to see an end to austerity. The argument is that signing up to the treaty will institutionalise austerity as we drive towards a 60% debt-to-GDP ratio.

Adopting the fiscal compact will require that the debt-to-GDP ratio decline to 60%. That is a massive fall from where we are now. Many commentators, including myself to some extent, see that trajectory as probably involving a requirement to not just run small or zero deficits but to have surpluses.