Charlie McCreevy, Ireland’s European commissioner, who joked during last year’s Lisbon treaty referendum that he had not read the document and “no sane person would,” on Friday warned a second rejection by Ireland next month could turn a “very serious economic problem for Dublin into a full blown economic crisis”.

In a strongly worded speech to a business lunch in Dublin, the commissioner warned that there was an unacceptably high risk that “international investors would take fright” following a second ‘No’ “at a time when our government, our banks, and our businesses need to raise more international capital than ever.”