The Taoiseach is in favour of holding another referendum on the Nice Treaty.

"I have stated outside and inside the House that I am in favour of returning to the people on the issue," Mr Ahern said.

He was replying to the Fine Gael leader, Mr Michael Noonan, who asked Mr Ahern if he was aware of two headlines appearing side-by-side in The Irish Times. One stated the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, had warned of the consequences of failing to ratify the treaty, while the other had quoted Mr Ahern as refusing to say yes or no on a new Nice poll.

"There is a certain amount of confusion when headlines such as these appear. This confusion arises from the fact that yesterday the Taoiseach would not say whether the Treaty of Nice needed to be ratified by a referendum, or whether he had some scheme in his head for that purpose. Will he clarify the position?"

Mr Ahern said the Government had not made a formal decision on the issue.

"However, I have indicated on several occasions, and I do so again, that the Treaty of Nice is a condition of enlargement.

"By December 31st, 2002, all EU member-states have to ratify the treaty to allow enlargement to go ahead. Otherwise, we block the entire enlargement process. Our EU partners and the accession countries are firmly of the view that enlargement requires this to happen so we can deal with the institutional changes and ratify the treaty."

Mr Ahern said if it was decided to return to the people on the issue, a number of things would have to be done.

"We have to reflect on the reason for the people's decision and try as best we can to address those issues which we outlined in the discussion yesterday.

"A number of points were put to me to which I replied yesterday and we have to try to deal with those issues. It would be unwise not to try to resolve, tease out and deal with as many of these issues beforehand as best we can, otherwise we will be ignoring the public, which none of us wish to do.

"We have no right to do so. Therefore, we have to address the issues which the people put before us as best we can within the powers available to us and in a manner to which the European Council and General Affairs Council will agree. That is the task for the months ahead."

Mr Caoimhgh∅n ╙ Caolβin (SF, Cavan-Monaghan) said Mr Ahern would know that those who had argued for the No position in the last referendum wished to honour and respect the decision of the electorate and requested the governments of other EU member-states not to proceed with ratification. Instead, they should address the issue of enlargement by other means.

Mr Ahern said: "That is always our problem. No one has any objection to enlargement, but the effect of what we have done ensures that we are objecting to it. That is the difficulty".

Mr ╙ Caolβin said it was not beyond the genius of the EU to come up with a formula.