The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, has confirmed that a referendum will be held to ratify the Nice Treaty, which deals with the future development of the EU.

A White Paper will be published next Tuesday and legislation shortly afterwards on the wording of the constitutional amendment.

"The Government has decided on the basis of the Attorney General's advice that a referendum will be required to allow Ireland to ratify the Treaty of Nice," he said. Four referendums would be held on the same day, "before the summer", and he rejected suggestions that holding the four together was a "deliberate attempt to muddy the waters".

The timing, however, could be affected by the foot-and-mouth crisis, as the arrangements had been "based on us not experiencing an outbreak of the foot-and-mouth disease", he told Mr Jim O'Keeffe, Fine Gael's foreign affairs spokesman.

However, Mr Michael D. Higgins, Labour's foreign affairs spokesman, said: "The Minister is creating a situation in which there is a huge chance that people will not be sufficiently informed by public debate on all aspects of this matter."

Mr Cowen replied that the Government had indicated that we would have the four referendums on the same day. "We do not believe that confusion will arise. We will have to agree to disagree on that."

Mr John Gormley (Green, Dublin South-East) accused the Minister of engaging in a "deliberate attempt to muddy the waters" by holding the four referendums on the same day.