# "Ireland lost its sovereignty" meaningful or meaningingless



## barryl (29 Apr 2012)

my own understanding of losing sovereignty of this country is like an individual handing over the keys and the deeds of his house that he owns outright to a creditor,and being completely at the creditors mercy.my question is...have we handed over the keys and the deeds of this country to the imf,or not?Is loss of sovereignty just a term or does it carry any weight?


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## Brendan Burgess (29 Apr 2012)

I don't think that your analogy is very useful. Most analogies aren't. Individuals don't lose sovereignty. 

A country gains its sovereignty when an occupying force leaves. Ireland gained its partial sovereignty after the Treaty. 

Did we lose it as a result of the bail out? No, but we did lose our economic sovereignty.

I remember thinking at the time what was all the fuss about. We had shown to be manifestly unable to manage our own economic affairs. Now a troika had taken over and they were going to impose the economic disciplines which our politicians would not have been able to impose. The last government and the current government tended to blame the troika for unpopular decisions, but decisions that we should be making anyway.

So, yes, we have lost our economic sovereignty, but that is a good thing.


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