TAOISEACH BRIAN Cowen has said he remains hopeful that next week's European Council meeting will help him identify the "road map" to enable a second Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.
Amid some speculation here that the Government would like to hold a second vote in the autumn of next year, Mr Cowen stressed that discussions at political and official level were "ongoing" and represented "work in progress".
The Taoiseach was speaking outside 10 Downing Street after yesterday's meeting with British prime minister Gordon Brown and ahead of today's talks with French president Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris.
Mr Cowen described his pre-summit tour of European capitals as an effort "to see if we can find a mutually satisfactory way forward."
Thanking Germany's chancellor Angela Merkel, whom he met on Wednesday, and British prime minister Gordon Brown for their continuing engagement, the Taoiseach said:
"What we're trying to do is set out what are the conditions, what are the means by which Ireland could consider looking at this issue again."
Asked if he could detail his proposals to meet the concerns of voters registered in the first referendum, Mr Cowen would only say: "Obviously my intention is to seek to allay those concerns people raised in respect of various matters, which I outlined at the October [European] Council meeting."
With further meetings of officials scheduled ahead of next week's summit, Mr Cowen insisted: "These discussions are ongoing . . . Until conclusions are actually drafted for that [summit] meeting we can't know whether we're going to get there or not. I remain hopeful."
Meanwhile, Green Party leader John Gormley has said that concerns about defence must be addressed before any commitment is made to re-run a referendum on the treaty, writes Jamie Smyth, European Correspondent, from Brussels.
The Minister for the Environment expressed confidence the Government will be able to extract guarantees from its EU partners on the key issues of concern that prompted the rejection of the treaty.
"Talk of a second referendum is still premature until we see the outcome of the [current] negotiations," said Mr Gormley, who highlighted voter concerns over the possibility of conscription into an EU army as one area where specific guarantees were required.
"We do have to make it very clear, in a series of declarations or embedded elsewhere . . . that things like that are just not going to happen," said Mr Gormley, who added it was not a question of guarantees being "wishy-washy" but rather putting people's minds at rest.
He said he would only make up his own mind about whether a second referendum should be held when he studied the guarantees that emerged from negotiations, which will take place at next week's EU summit and probably beyond.
He said the Green Party would ask its membership before deciding whether to support the treaty in a new vote.