In March 1996, Bertie Ahern stated in the Dail that any attempt to join Nato's PfP without a referendum would be a "serious breach of faith and fundamentally undemocratic". He continued: "While the government may reassure the public that there are no implications for our neutrality, and that may be technically true at this time, it will be seen by other countries as a gratuitous signal that Ireland is moving away from its neutrality and towards gradual incorporation into NATO and the WEU in due course".

In 1997 Mr Ahern's party's general election manifesto stated: "Fianna Fail are committed to nuclear disarmament. We oppose any move to edge Ireland closer to membership of an alliance still committed to the deployment and use of nuclear weapons. We oppose Irish participation in NATO itself, in NATO-led organisations such as the Partnership for Peace, or in the Western European Union beyond observer status.

"Fianna Fail in Government will not participate in any co-operative security structure which has implications for Irish neutrality without first consulting the people through a referendum. Fianna Fail will strive to achieve a fresh vision of the European Union as a political and economic community, rather than a military superpower or federal superstate."

Mr Ahern is now showing his deep contempt for Dail Eireann and the Irish people by joining NATO's PfP without a referendum. He is making this decision despite the fact that an MRBI poll in May 1999 showed that 71 per cent of the Irish people wanted a referendum and that in the Dail the Labour Party, the Greens, Sinn Fein, Independents such as Mildred Fox, and an increasing number of Fianna Fail backbenchers, including Albert Reynolds, have all called for a referendum.

Fine Gael has yet to decide formally what attitude it will take in regard to a referendum, but surely it does not owe Mr Ahern any favours? While like The Irish Times it supports PfP membership, it should argue that a referendum would provide an opportunity to clarify what is at stake for Ireland in the developing debate on security. Any half decent Opposition would not make things easy for a Government.

The Peace and Neutrality Alliance (PANA) does not believe Ireland's membership of NATO's PfP can be seriously discussed in isolation. We believe that the political elite is committed to the total destruction of Irish neutrality and national independence by joining NATO and transforming the European Union into a federal nuclear armed superstate.

PfP membership is only part of a process which includes the Single European Act, the Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties and the Cologne Treaty which is still to come. To this elite, the Irish peace process is useful only in that people will be encouraged to put down the armalite with one hand and pick up a Trident nuclear armed bomb in the other.

The political elite had hoped to do so without any referendums, but thanks to the bravery of Raymond Crotty, every time it moves Ireland towards its objective, it has to have a referendum. It must be disappointed that as its objective becomes clearer, the resistance of the people grows, and the highest percentage ever, 38 per cent, voted against the Amsterdam Treaty.

PANA has already written to the President, Mrs McAleese, asking her to call a meeting of the Council of State to consider if the legal advice of the Attorney General that the Government does not need to have a referendum is valid.

Objectives in the PfP Framework Document, while mentioning humanitarian operations, include the open-ended phrase, "and others as may be subsequently agreed". Such a phrase could allow Irish military activity in contravention of Article 29 of our Constitution.

Then there is the question of costs. Whatever about the declared initial expenditure, NATO would expect real inter-operability with its forces from the Celtic Tiger. The minimum would be the equivalent of one self-supporting mechanised division.

This amounts to three brigades, at least one of which would have a main battle tank component, and all three of which would be fully equipped with armoured infantry or armoured reconnaissance vehicles.

Tanks such as the US Abrams or the British Challenger cost at least £5.5 million each. Edward Horgan, an ex-Army officer, a member of PANA just back from two months in East Timor, estimates the cost of PfP membership would rise to £5 billion.

THE Government has refused to provide any real information on costs. The nurses should be interested, on the verge of their strike, about the real priorities of the elite.

Then there is the question of the other "neutral states" that have joined PfP. It is all about money. Sweden, Switzerland, Austria and Finland all have military industrial complexes.

The NATO states spend $428 billion a year on arms. The first major speech by Lord Robertson, the new NATO boss, was a call to increase expenditure on arms. The "neutral' states knew they had to join to get a slice of the action or all the pickings would be left to the US, France or Britain, as all weapons have to be inter-operable.

The three new NATO states, Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic, will have to spend $35 billion on inter-operable arms. When Ukraine and the other states have to achieve inter-operability, the market for arms will expand massively.

These countries are already called "former neutral" states by NATO leaders. In the countries themselves, when they joined PfP, their leaders, like our own today, said it did not affect their neutrality.

Now, for example, the Austrian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dr Schussel, has stated: "We are in favour of full membership of NATO and the WEU. According to what is already agreed in the Treaties of Maastricht and Amsterdam, in the end there would be a merger between the EU and the WEU." In all these neutral countries major sections of the elite want to destroy their neutrality and say so openly.

Neither is Ireland immune.

The AFrI report on the Irish arms industry shows that the number of military export licences issued by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment has increased from 81 in 1996 to 346 in the first 11 months of 1998.

While the editor of The Irish Times says the Government does not intend to join NATO, after its U-turn on the PfP he must be the only person in the world who believes a word it says.

PANA rejects the new Euro nationalism and the alliance with the US military industrial complex that are at the centre of the rationale to join the PfP. We need a small army commensurate with the fact that thanks to our anti-imperial tradition we have no enemies.

We need to focus on the UN, not NATO. The objective of the Irish peace process is to take the gun out of politics. We do not need another process to replace the armalite with nuclear weapons, "in due course".

Roger Cole is chairman of the Peace and Neutrality Alliance