UCD has strongly criticised its own Law Society for inviting the far-right politician and Holocaust denier Jean Marie Le Pen to a debate on the Lisbon Treaty.
"This is an ill-judged flight of fancy by a student society and we don't expect that the talk will take place," a UCD spokesman said yesterday. He did not rule out college authorities moving to prohibit the attendance of Mr Le Pen at the UCD campus in Belfield.
The UCD Law Society, which is run by students at the college, has asked Mr Le Pen and his National Front colleague French MEP Bruno Gollnisch to speak at the college in late March or early April ahead of a referendum.
Both men are avid opponents of the EU, which they argue undermines national sovereignty and boosts immigration.
Mr Le Pen is a controversial figure in France where he founded the vociferously anti-immigration Front National party in 1972. He has been successfully convicted in both France and Germany for making comments that "minimised the Holocaust".
Ciarán Ahern, auditor of the UCD Law Society, defended the invitation on the basis that both are prominent opponents of the Lisbon Treaty.
"We are charged with promoting free speech within UCD. We certainly don't want to give a platform to xenophobes but it should be up to their opponents to defeat their arguments in debate," said Mr Ahern. Their attendance was not yet "set in stone" as neither had yet accepted the society's invitation.
A spokesman for Mr Le Pen told The Irish Timeslast night that neither he nor Mr Gollnisch had yet made a final decision on whether to attend. He said they were both eager to come to Ireland to take part in the debate but they wanted to consider how it would affect the No campaign.
There was a generally negative reaction yesterday to the decision to invite Mr Le Pen.
Minister of State for European Affairs Dick Roche said: "He belongs to another age, as do his Eurosceptic opinions. Sadly, Le Pen is not the only person on the No side that is intent on misrepresenting what the EU Reform Treaty is about."
Sinn Féin MEP Mary Lou McDonald said Mr Le Pen's attendance would damage the No campaign. "If Mr Le Pen really wants a No vote in this referendum then the best thing he can do is to stay away," she said.
Libertas, a think tank opposed to the Lisbon Treaty, also criticised the invitation to Mr Le Pen as "a fairly pathetic attempt by a student society to get publicity for itself on the back of the forthcoming referendum campaign."
The UK Independence Party (Ukip) has also decided to campaign against the Lisbon Treaty in the upcoming Irish referendum. The party's national executive council decided last Friday that it would "actively assist the Irish campaign for a No vote", according to a note published on the far-right wing party's website.
Ukip leader Nigel Farage told The Irish Timesyesterday that some people in Ireland may take umbrage at English people telling them what to do, but he said some members of Ukip would go to Ireland during the campaign.