Whether it’s a bribe or blackmail, we’ll be rewarded for a yes vote

TAOISEACH Enda Kenny said Irish people would not respond to bribes when voting on the forthcoming fiscal treaty, but what would he call the promise of access to the ESM bailout fund if a yes vote is returned — or can that assurance be, more properly, called blackmail?

Now a year in office, the Government’s claim that it is engaged in tense negotiations with the troika about our crippling bank debt, which stands at 40% of GDP, sounds increasingly delusional. Either that or our negotiators are among the worst in the world.

When the economy imploded, in the last quarter of 2008, we were told that unless draconian austerity measures were introduced the country would endure 10 lost years of recession.