Divisions have appeared among anti-Nice Treaty campaigners, following claims that "floods" of eastern European workers will move to Ireland after European Union enlargement.
The Green Party and Sinn Féin yesterday moved to distance themselves from the allegations made by the National Platform and the No to Nice Campaign spokesman, Mr Justin Barrett.
Eastern European workers will be able to move to Ireland and three other EU member-states post-enlargement. The remaining EU states have imposed restrictions, which could last up to seven years.
Rejecting claims by the Minister of State, Mr Dick Roche, that it had been silent in the face of the allegations, Sinn Féin said he was guilty of a "pathetic attempt to escape real debate on the treaty". The party's international affairs spokesman, Dublin South Central TD Mr Aengus Ó Snodaigh, said Mr Roche's charge that Sinn Féin was ambivalent on xenophobia was "absolutely without foundation".
"Immigration was not an issue in the last referendum campaign and Sinn Féin is opposed to its introduction as an issue in this one," Mr Ó Snodaigh said. "We do not believe that the accession of new countries will lead to any large influx of immigrants. We believe in a progressive immigration and asylum policy.
"We believe that people on all sides in the Nice debate must ensure that nothing is said or done which could give encouragement to xenophobes or damage inter-community relations," he went on.
Sinn Féin does not oppose EU enlargement. The candidate countries will be able to join regardless of whether Ireland votes Yes or No in the October referendum, he said. "We believe that these new countries and their people should be joining the EU on a basis of equality and not as second-class citizens as is the case under Nice," he said.
Green Party TD Mr John Gormley acknowledged there was unhappiness within his party's ranks about the comments made by the National Platform's Mr Anthony Coughlan and Mr Barrett. "We don't want to get involved in that sort of thing. It is something that we don't like instinctively, because we are an internationalist party. We feel that it distracts from the treaty itself. We want to concentrate on the treaty."
Both Mr Coughlan and Mr Barrett must believe there is "an audience" for such views, he said. "However, I have known Mr Coughlan for a long number of years. He is not a racist. He just believes that the Government made a boo-boo (by not matching the seven-year restrictions imposed by other states). That is a point of view."
The Green Party, he said, made it clear during the last Nice referendum that it disagreed with the attempts led by the Germans to keep eastern European workers out for seven years.
The anti-Nice camp is "a very broad church. Joe Higgins would not have much in common with Justin Barrett. We just hope that all of the arguments will be heard," Mr Gormley said.
