So far the debate here has focused on everything other than the contents of the treaty. Both sides are making extraordinary claims regardless of evidence or even comment sense.
The arguments can be summarised as follows;
PRO: "If you vote NO we will be kicked out of Europe"
CON: "If you vote YES we will lose autonomy"
In effect, dammed if we do, dammed if we don't.
Meanwhile, the Wall St Journal has this to say;
Ireland sucked on the teat of EU regional aid for two and a half decades without discernible effect. By the mid-1980s, it was still a poor country by European standards, but it was also facing a budgetary and debt crisis. It was only when it started on a campaign of supply-side tax cuts slashing marginal rates along with capital gains and corporate income-tax rates that the economy took off.
[snip]
Brussels always treated Ireland's fantastically successful tax policies with rank suspicion, accusing it throughout its boom years of "tax dumping" and "unfair tax competition." There are plenty of governments on the Continent, not least France's, that would love to rein in Ireland's ability to attract investment through supply-side tax policy. Handing Brussels greater potential power to influence Irish tax policy would be tantamount to surrendering the keys to Irish prosperity to Brussels for all time.
link
