Another EU referendum was announced last week – the actual date of the Fiscal Compact Referendum is yet to be decided but it will probably be in May or June.
You can look here for a summary of the Fiscal Compact Treaty that is the subject of the referendum .
Ireland has had a couple of referendums in recent years. In the last 2 we were voting on the Lisbon Treaty – we had to do it twice because it was rejected the first time ! (That wasn’t the answer the EU wanted). We had Lisbon 1 in June 2008 and Lisbon 2 in October 2009.
The cost of running a referendum isn’t cheap – the first Lisbon treaty cost the taxpayer just over €22 Million. The second Lisbon Treaty referendum was a bit cheaper – at €17.5 Million.
These figures don’t include spending by the political parties – and some of that spend will probably have come from taxpayers anyway in the form of the Party Leaders Allowance .
So – we can probably expect a similar cost for the upcoming referendum on the Fiscal Treaty. The way things are looking – the government will be lucky to even get €22 million from the Household Charge.