Former Taoiseach Mr John Bruton has said that Mr Charlie McCreevy, Ms Mary Harney and Mr Michael McDowell should not be invited to join the next government unless they change their approach to the Nice Treaty.
Speaking in Brussels, where he was attending the Convention on the Future of Europe, Mr Bruton said that the three politicians had undermined the campaign to ratify the treaty by adopting a belligerent tone towards Europe.
"Unless they undertake to stop making statements of the kind they have been making, they really shouldn't be in government," he said.
Mr Bruton declined to join the Fine Gael MEP, Ms Mary Banotti, in predicting that the treaty would be rejected in a second referendum. But he said there was widespread pessimism in continental Europe about the referendum's prospects.
"There is a sense that the Irish political elite, notably the Taoiseach, have little or no understanding of the scale of the implications for Ireland and for the European Union, of a second rejection of the treaty by the Irish people.
"There is a feeling that the Taoiseach is so anxious to preserve his personal popularity and reputation for being inoffensive that he is unable and unwilling to spell out the realities of this matter for the Irish people," he said.
Mr Bruton said that Ireland would be treated as a "problem child" in Europe if the treaty was rejected.
The Taoiseach had made a grievous error in failing to address the Nice Treaty during the election campaign.
"In my view, the decision the Irish people will make on Nice is a more important one than even the general election itself. It will be a defining moment in history.
"Just as the issue of our relationship with Britain was the one around which current political parties defined themselves in the 20th century, Ireland's relationship with Europe will be the issue around which they will define themselves in the first half of the 21st century," he said.
