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A second Irish vote may be necessary on the EU’s key reform treaty, the country’s Europe Minister, Dick Roche, said on Monday. Ireland sent shockwaves through the European Union when 53 percent of voters rejected the Lisbon Treaty in the only popular vote on the text anywhere in the 27-nation bloc.

The National Platform EU Research and Information Centre 24 Crawford Avenue Dublin 9 Tel.: 01-8305792 Web-site nationalplatform.org Thursday 6 August 2008 Dear Stephen, In your Irish Times article last Saturday you call on the Government to ratify the Lisbon Treaty regardless of the 12 June referendum result.

Under the headline “24 to 1”, French journalist Jean Quatremer writes on his Coulisses de Bruxelles blog: "The recent poll showing that 71% of Irish people are opposed to a second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty has not had much impact in European capitals, since the wording of the question indicated that the vote would be on the same text.

Cracking piece from David Quinn in today’s Irish Independent: “Here is why the Lisbon Treaty referendum was lost -- and if the Government does not address this, the next one will likely be lost as well: people are worried about the loss of sovereignty and national identity… the European

The Irish government has had a lot to say this weekend about Open Europe and our poll questions, but nothing at all to say about the results of the poll. In an effort to present the whole thing as "extraordinarily skewed" (his words), Europe Minister Dick Roche went to great pains to deny that it

Hundreds protested in Dublin yesterday as French President Nicolas Sarkozy arrived in Ireland. Demonstrators gathered outside government offices to protest comments made last week by Sarkozy that, in effect, called into question the result of the Irish referendum that... read more

Amusing analysis from the Irish Sunday Independent: After the Lisbon Treaty was voted down, by the only electorate in Europe allowed vote on it, Mr Sarkozy announced he was coming over to talk to us. It's like when a schoolteacher (Brian Cowen) loses control of the class (us) and the headmaster (Big Bad Sarkozy) comes stomping down the corridor, eyes ablaze beneath his fearsome brow.

From PA we learn that Sarkozy has managed to fit a hair between the concept of a "referendum" and "giving people the opportunity to give their opinion". "I never said Ireland had to organise a new referendum," he said. "I said that at some stage or another the Irish had to be given the opportunity to give their opinion, they had to give their opinion.

I have previously written about the material we receive as parliamentarians.  One of the publications that arrives regularly on my desk is The German Times, ‘a monthly newspaper for Europe’.  In the July issue, the executive editor, Theo Sommer, writes about the outcome of the referendum in Ireland

Lately, I’ve been running into what seems to be a popular argument nowadays about the viability and future of democracy, which is supposedly undermined by a new emerging governing model based on the Chinese and Russian experience of authoritarian capitalism and “sovereign democracy” respectively.