One of the problems the Yes camp have can be illustrated by looking at someone like me.
I am pro Europe generally speaking and I have no doubt that on balance Irelands membership of The EEC then EC now EU has been extremely extremely positive for the country as a whole our economy our social policies and all of us as Irish people.
I am a stereotypically middle class person university graduate professional with a decent income and a good life. I have no axe to grind. I am a centrist politically speaking,have voted Labour,FG, Green and on rare occasions FF.
The vast majority of those advocating a yes vote would have my respect if not necessarily my vote or absolute agreement. By contrast I think that the vast majority of those advocating a no vote are lunatics. I would cross the strret to avoid most of them,I intensely dislike Sinn Fein, most of Coir are mad or fanatics and as for the marxists the anarchists etc... they are just a waste of space.
I care not a whit whether we remain neutral and believe that neutrality is something to be decided upon on a case by case basis.
I believe that most of those on the No side have run disgraceful untruthful fear based campaigns.
So it should not take much to push someone like me over to the Yes side.
And yet, I have yet to hear any convincing reason for changing Bunreacht na hEireann to incorporate the Lisbon treaty. There may be many but I have not heard them.
I have heard ad nauseum that we , a little country on the edge of Europe, will lose our influence, that we punch above our weight but wont in future if we say no, that the rest will push on without us...the sky will fall in etc.. And yet France and the Netherlands did not suffer.
And either it is a Union where all countries are equal and have equal respect or else it is not. If it is they must respect our decision the way that Frances No vote was respected, if it is not then why oh why should we vote to make the Eu run more efficiently if this only increases its domination over us.
I am told to vote Yes and reassured that we will not lose power, not lose our independence on tax matters etc.. by people who proudly admit not to have read the Treaty! I am a solicitor and I can only imagine what a client of mine would say if I told him that the 100 page commercial lease he asked me to review was fine and he should sign it while laughingly admitting that I only read to page 75 cos it was too long.
If the Eu wants to be more efficient(and Im not sure that I want it to get more efficient given the volume and extent of legislation (by way of decisions directives regulations etc..) that it spews out each year) then it can first stop the ridiculous bilocation of the parliament between Brussels and strasbourg each month which costs millions each time and then it can move on to being totally transparent in its workings and its costs and expenditure which it refuses to do.
Then if EU want us to exercise our democratic vote it shoud release the Commision report on taxation which it is holding back until after our vote.
And in the interim can someone on the YES side please explain to me why Giscard D,Estaing, who was intrinsically involved in the EU constitution project, appears to believe that Lisbon is the Constitution in disguise and that we (and the French and the Dutch and the people of all other countries who looked like rejecting the Constitution such as the UK) will be fooled into ratifying the Constitution by the back door???
I voted Yes to the S.E.A Maastricht etc.. I want to be convinced to vote Yes again but as things stand I am veering towards No and at best towards abstaining.