No U-turn on accession policy, insists Roche

MINSTER for Europe Dick Roche insisted yesterday the Government had not done a U-turn on its accession policy for workers from new EU states in a bid to secure a Yes vote in the Nice Treaty referendum.

The minister was responding to a claim by the National Platform that the Government had done a U-turn because it was afraid an open-door policy would lose it votes.

National Platform chairman Justin Barrett claimed the Government's official position on immigration from the 10 EU applicant countries had changed in the past year.