Does Lisbon 'yes' brings to an end a golden era for Ireland.

So the Irish and EU politicians have got what they want from Irish people. Moot point is if Irish people will be getting anything in return.

EU has been quite generous with Ireland recently. ECB has been bending over backwards assisting Irish banks & Government with billions of Euros in loans. I for one believe all this unconditional support has been only due to the Lisbon referendum which was upcoming.

I imagine soon EU bosses will begin to see Ireland as a bottomless pit where good money is thrown after bad. Decades of development funding from EU has made Irish citizens rich but Ireland has remained poor in terms of development, mainly in infrastructure.

All the money made in Celtic tiger era has only served to increase the costs. An amazingly shortsighted government has splurged money as if tomorrow does not exist. And now it is borrowing money as if, again, tomorrow does not exist. This perhaps is the only government in the developed world where the priority is government expenditure rather than stimulating economy, as evidenced by VAT and other tax increases, while governments world over were reducing tax burdens and funding stimulus packages.

Twenty years ago, Ireland was perhaps like a kid brother in EU. Underdeveloped and needing help. Today there are plenty of other EU members who are worse off. Expect EU to look favorably at these countries (Dell got in excess of €50 million for moving to Poland) .

Ireland is now a big lad on it's own. The government needs to show maturity like that of a developed country if we need to pull ourselves out of this mess. But all we seem to be getting is cronyism and weakness to face up.