The Irish people were showered with promises of economic recovery, investment and jobs if they voted ‘Yes’ to the Lisbon Treaty. These lavish promises will come back to haunt the current Government in particular.

However, it wasn’t just the government – whose survival depended on the outcome of the vote – that was involved. Fine Gael and the Labour Party were in on the act of course, as was IBEC, the organisation for Irish big business.

No sooner were the referendum results in however, than a general rowing back began. The posters about jobs weren’t referring to any specific policy or initiative to create actual jobs, it was all about a ‘context’ we are now being told. Voting ‘Yes’ would create a context ‘favourable’ to job creation.

Unfortunately the European context in which this ‘favourable context’ is promised, is anything but favourable. Twenty one million people are unemployed in the European Union – up five million in one year. Smaller countries with a similarity to Ireland, like the Baltic States for example, are imploding economically.

Nor are the activities of the EU Commission giving any great cause for hope. It’s most recent foray into the job creation area was to approve a bribe of 43 million by the Polish government to the Dell corporation to further its profit lust by abandoning workers in Limerick and going for cheaper labour elsewhere.

Rather than expect anything positive from the Lisbon Treaty results in the way of job creation, apparently we should instead be grateful that the ‘Yes’ vote prevented a stock market collapse. That is according to unidentified traders in the business pages of one pro Lisbon newspaper.

And it appears that this hypothetical prevention of a hypothetical collapse is about as good as it will get.

However, it appears that the ‘Yes’ vote did not bring about the prevention of an increase in the cost of borrowing. Readers will remember dire warnings by Bloxham Stockbrokers that a ‘No’ vote would cost the State, first 200 million, and then a massive 3 billion, in increased interest payments to bondholders as they would be worried about our ‘commitment to remain at the heart of Europe.’

Unfortunately, a few days after the result of the Referendum, apparently our telling Europe how much we wanted to cling to its bosom wasn’t good enough for the parasites in the financial markets. The cost of our borrowing rose anyway as the National Treasury Management Agency prepared to raise more to meet the increasing State deficit. ‘This is not what we were expecting’, said one financial commentator. Indeed!

It is a sign of the establishment’s servility to the markets that the dire threats made to the Irish people were not challenged by any arm including the media. The warnings were left hanging there. Nor was there any stern or widespread questioning of the promises.

However as the smoke of the Lisbon battle fades away, survivors can be expected to seek fulfilment of the promises of jobs. That will challenge a government hell bent on slashing living standards and services because such a policy cuts jobs rather than create them. The Fine Gael and Labour parties which also signed their names to the promissory notes in the course of the campaign should also be challenged.

Others need to be questioned about the claims they made for the Lisbon Treaty also. Those trade union leaders and the Labour Party who promised a major improvement in workers’ rights if Lisbon is ratified with the Charter of Fundamental Rights attached, must be held to account

There are four groups of workers who are currently on strike in Ireland who have a particular interest in this. They are workers at Manor Park Nursing Homes in County Longford, Mr Binman workers in Tipperary, as well as Coca Cola workers and MTL dockers. All are out – some for many months – resisting attacks on their wages and working conditions.

These workers might rightly ask whether any change will come in a situation where their lives are being turned upside down as a result of employers demanding severe wage cuts and worse working conditions. Surely, putting workers under these grave pressures, including by massively profitable companies like Coca Cola, should be outlawed. Because if workers’ rights mean anything, then it is to be entitled to maintain a reasonable job with decent conditions.

The promised transformational effect on workers rights contingent on the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty certainly seems not to have rung many bells in Brussels as of yet. At a meeting the day before yesterday Aof coordinators of the Employment and Social affairs Committee of the European Parliament, there was no mention of factoring in a major, or even a minor, discussion on the implications of the revolutionary advances in workers’ rights following ratification of Lisbon. Surely an oversight?

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