YES: 752,451
NO: 862,415
Lost by 53.4% to 46.6%
It was a day when Irish radio and television did not distinguish themselves. for most of the day RTE radio sounded like a wake house. then on both TV and radio came the whingeing, petulance and arrogance of bad losers.
The no campaigners were inavariably taken to task by presenters with barely concealed anger. they were repeatedly challenged to provide Taoiseach Brian Cowen with a blueprint with which he could approach his colleagues in Europe. The bias of many RTE presenters, so obvious throughout the campaign ,was now translated into an attack on the winners, their motives, their campaign, even their finances.
It looks as if the Establishment has not received the message that the electorate had tried to pass on to them. One of these, in my opinion, was that arrogance in high office is unwelcome, and that people honoured with the right to represent others must not take the people who elected them for granted. That they should shed that arrogance which makes them believe that election to the Dáil every five years gives any Government a mandate to act ruthlessly, pushing the favoured agenda of a few.
It was that kind of arrogance that (during the campaign) caused one prominent member of Government to describe the No voters as Loolahs and (on today's Radio) two other pro-Yes people to declare that the vote of the people reflected class division.
Aligning themselves with the already establised arrogance of the Government parties (Fianna Fáil and the Green Party) in pushing this opaque Treaty on their voters with a minimum of real, well thought-out reasons for doing so, will have done nothing to help the Fine Gael and Labour Parties.
The win for the NO vote should be a salutary lesson for those who walk or swagger in the corridors of power both in Dublin and in Brussels.
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