C'mon Ireland, you know you want to...

[Louis VI the Fat]

Daft, but their choice

Daft indeed.

As for 'their choice', let me give you all my careful, balanced opinion about Irish free choice. How shall I phrase it so as not to come across as too crass? Ah, here you go:

Edit: The previous statement here was, upon reflection, not a good idea. Edited to 'the rights of Irish women are my concern'.

I am too pro-choice to consider it NOT their choice, that is, of individual Irish women. To repeat my old argument: the rights of women are always relegated to second rank. In this case, to inflated demands of national sovereignity.

Human rights anywere in the world are the concern of all. Saudi-Arabia can not give a raped teenage girl the lash. Ireland can not lock up raped fourteen-year old girls either.
I do not remain silent in the face of religious fundamentalism. Five hundred threads about evil Muslims on the .org but when it happens in the EU, apparantly we must remain silent or we'll be accused of being undemocratic, imperialist, fascist and arrogant.

Still labouring under the wrong-headed idea that ireland is rich because of EU subsidies, which they then ungratefully throw back in the faces of generous continental taxpayers by undercutting them?

Nope.

Ireland is rich because it understood its position in 1985: an English speaking country, with a well-educated workforce, combined with low-wages and full acces to the world's largest market. How good can it possibly get?
Any direct EU subsidies merely served to make a 'take-off' possible, and to speed up development.

Irish corporate tax regime is intimitately connected with its position within the EU. It can not be understood outside of it. Switzerland's banking secret can not be understood outside a context of Switzerland's neutrality, stability, geo-political position and the existense of a world outside of Switzeland. The absense of income tax in Monaco, the tax regime of the Caymans, none can not understood without their outside working.