Foreign ministers from the EU's four neutral states met informally yesterday morning but refrained from expressing explicit support for or opposition to the NATO air strikes on Yugoslavia.
However, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Andrews, last night rejected the charge that he was sitting on the fence on the issue. "I do not agree with that," he said.
"We can't win," said Mr Andrews, "but we are preserving in a principled way our neutral position. Our position is that we would have preferred a United Nations mandate, but in the circumstances we cannot make any observation on that particular situation."
In the Dail, the Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton, said Serbia was a sovereign country and "in this instance, the allies are invading by air a sovereign country".
He acknowledged that times were reached in international relations when the use of force was necessary when all diplomatic means of resolving a difficulty had been exhausted.
"It is better to be honest and say that this was a political decision without legal authority than to pretend there is a spurious legal authority when none exists."
The Labour spokesman on Foreign Affairs, Mr Proinsias De Rossa, said: "We have what amounts to full-scale war in Europe for the first time in 45 years, yet the Irish Government apparently has nothing to say on the matter.
"We have a Government that is seeking a seat on the Security Council of the United Nations, yet apparently has nothing to say on the effective bypassing of the UN by NATO."