IRISH EUROSCEPTICISM
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Abstract
EU membership brought Ireland considerable economic gain, but also benefits of another kind. A radical view is that until 1973 Ireland’s independence was vacuous due to the continued economic dependence on Britain. The year 2000 saw the start of a new relationship between Ireland and the EU: this was the year of the ‘Boston-Berlin’ debate, followed by the detrimental ‘budget row’ and Nice referendum in 2001. These events added nuance to the debate on Ireland’s membership. However, opinion polls continued to show very high levels of public support for the EU throughout this time, and upon examination, the referendum results do not support the view that Euroscepticism has spread like wildfire, or even at all, among the Irish public. When confronted with decisive choices, political parties such as Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats, whose prominent members had been making statements and taking positions that could be perceived as Eurosceptic, reassumed their conventional pro-European stance.