Ross breaks his silence and calls for No vote

VOTING INTENTIONS:INDEPENDENT DUBLIN South TD Shane Ross has ended weeks of silence by declaring he will be calling for a No vote in the referendum.

Mr Ross used the pages of his former employer the Sunday Independent to announce his decision yesterday. In a column, he claimed he was “passionately pro-European”, but said he could not vote Yes because “we are being compelled to vote in a twilight zone”.

“The full package is shrouded in uncertainty. Little light will be shed on it until long after the polls close on Thursday,” he said.

The normally outspoken politician had previously refused to state his voting intentions. He had been one of six parliamentarians who had called for the referendum to be postponed and had unsuccessfully tried to introduce legislation in the Dáil that would have had the effect of delaying it.

He had denied, when asked, that his refusal to state his intention was due to the strong support for the fiscal treaty in his constituency, among the most prosperous of all the State’s 43 constituencies.

Citing French and German reluctance to ratify the treaty, Mr Ross said yesterday that both states knew their vital national interests were at stake.

He described as an “empty threat” the clause in the treaty that would deny European Stability Mechanism funds to states that didn’t ratify.

“It is inconceivable that Greece would be saved and Ireland abandoned,” he said.