The Taoiseach and the Minister for Foreign Affairs engaged in an intensive campaign over the weekend to convince our EU partners and the applicant states that Ireland remains enthusiastically pro-European, and is in favour of enlargement.
Mr Ahern said at his press conference the summit had "confirmed to us how important and indispensable our membership of the European Union is across a remarkably wide range of issues. Our evolving role in the EU is crucial to the investment decisions of companies."
At the summit he had been lobbying the applicant states to be supportive of Irish companies investing there, particularly in Poland. He had been "assuring them that we are on side for enlargement. If we want to continue we want to be mindful of the importance of the investment strategy."
Leaders of many of the accession states told reporters at the end of the summit that Mr Ahern and Mr Cowen had left them with the clear understanding there would be another referendum in Ireland on the Nice Treaty and that this time there would be a better information campaign on it.
The Taoiseach made a surprise appearance at a packed Polish press briefing to assure accession state journalists that Ireland still favoured EU enlargement. He was invited to do so by the Polish Prime Minister, Mr Jerzy Buzek.
Mr Ahern also sought to minimise the importance of the Minister for Finance's comment that the No vote was a healthy anti-establishment gesture, of which the Irish people should be proud. The Taoiseach said Mr McCreevy had since "clarified" his remarks.
However, Mr McCreevy's spokeswoman said later there had been no clarification. She had merely provided a "synopsis" of his remarks.
"The Minister is fully behind Government policy. People had a democratic right to vote and we had to respect their wishes and analyse the situation and find out the best way to move on from this."