The Taoiseach stressed the importance of Ireland adopting the Nice Treaty.

Mr Ahern said he agreed that failure to ratify would mean Ireland was likely to be on its own. "The ratification of the treaty is essential for the process of enlargement to happen. That will then require us to go through a number of stages of development, which has the support of the European Council and the vast majority of this House." But, he added, they lived in a democracy, and "unfortunately, or fortunately - it depends on how one looks at it - when the treaty was presented to the people in a referendum, the Yes side, which I was on, was defeated."

Asked by the Fine Gael spokesman on foreign affairs, Mr Jim O'Keeffe, what he was doing about it, the Taoiseach replied they would have to look at the issues which had informed the No decision.

Pressed further, the Taoiseach said he would have preferred if the Yes side had won. "I cannot ignore the will of the people, and neither can the deputy. We now have to deal with those issues, debate them and bring people around to seeing them as we do. We can then go back to our colleagues and see with which issues they can help us.

"Deputy O'Keeffe cannot just say that they are all headbangers, they are all wrong and he is right. It cannot be done like that." Mr Ahern, who was replying to questions on next month's EU summit in Laeken, said the Government's priorities would be to ensure that the declaration to be agreed would provide a solid basis for the convention to carry forward the future of Europe debate into 2003.