An alliance of groups planning a protest march in Dublin on May 1st has insisted the event will be peaceful and has condemned what it called "media hype" about violence on the day.
The alliance also called on the Minister for Justice not to deploy gardaí in riot gear on the streets that day, claiming this would "actually be a provocation for violence".
The group, called Another Europe is Possible, held a press conference in Dublin this morning to highlight the event. Bodies linked to it include Sinn Fein, the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the NGO Peace Alliance, the ATGWU trade union and Globalise Resistance.
On May 1st, 10 new member states will be admitted to the European Union and the official ceremonies will take place in Dublin, hosted by the Irish presidency.
Members of the alliance said they expect between 5,000 and 10,000 people to take part in the event, marching from the city centre to the Phoenix Park, where accession events are to take place. The group said there will be "street theatre" and entertainment during the march and that it would be a family event.
Mr Rory Hearne, convenor, said the reality was that May 1st was a day of protest in many countries and he did not believe many people would travel to Dublin. He said the Government was "attempting to create a climate of fear and tension" in the run-up to May Day and the visit of US president George W. Bush in order to "intimidate" people from coming out to protest.
Mr Hearne said it was not the case that "anarchist" groups were planning to travel to Dublin to engage in violent protest. One group, the Wombles, was planning to travel, but its members were involved in peaceful street theatre, he said.
He and other speakers said the protest would mark the hypocrisy of the accession event, as the citizens of the 10 EU accession countries would not have the same rights as other citizens initially, including rights to work and travel freely within the EU.
Green Party MEP Ms Patricia McKenna said she would encourage everybody to become involved in the May 1st event, saying it would be a day of celebration and fun that would bring together people interested in global issues.
She said it would be "an absolute disaster" if there was a massive police presence and asked for "proper co-operation" between the gardaí and those organising the protest. The group said it had notified the Garda of its intention to stage the event.
Mr Daithi Doolan of Sinn Féin said the protests were not against expansion, but against the kind of EU that was being built. He said he believed the "current political establishment" would rather young people become mere political consumers rather than political activists.
Mr Eamonn Crudden of the Indymedia Ireland Collective said his group regreted the "cynical manipulation" of some of the contents of the Indymedia Ireland website by "certain users of the site in the press and in the Government".