Anti-treaty group wins right to challenge Ahern

An organisation opposed to the European Union’s Treaty of Nice today won the right to seek an injunction against Taoiseach Bertie Ahern over this week’s referendum on the issue.

The High Court decision follows an allegation by Mr Ahern that the No to Nice group had received funding for their "sinister campaign" from right wing fundamentalists in the United States.

Mr Ahern, who made the comments at a weekend conference in Killarney, Co Kerry, said that £100,000 had been pumped into the campaign based in his Dublin Parliamentary constituency.

The Government and opposition parties are all backing a ‘Yes’ vote in Thursday’s plebiscite which is being staged at the same time as two other constitutional referendums - on formal abolition of provisions for the death penalty and on the International Criminal Court.

In the High Court ‘No To Nice’ campaign patron Sean O’Domhnaill said his organisation’s reputation has been damaged by what Mr Ahern said.

He claimed the Taoiseach had been "lying and making scurrilous comments".

The injunction, which seeks damages and to restrain the Taoiseach from repeating the remarks, will be heard in court tomorrow, although it was not clear today whether Mr Ahern would be present or represented.

Meanwhile, in another High Court move relating to the referendum, a prisoner in Dublin’s Mountjoy jail, Patrick O’Doherty, 42, from Co Limerick today requested that all three polls should be suspended as his rights were being infringed because he could not vote while in jail.

Mr O’Doherty, who is serving a two year sentence for tax fraud, claimed that as a citizen of the state he should be allowed to vote.

He told the court it was "perverse in the extreme" that he should be denied a vote as a judgment was still pending from the Supreme Court on prisoners’ voting rights.

The Supreme Court has still to consider an appeal from the state against a High Court ruling last year that convicted arsonist Stephen "Rossi" Walsh had a right to vote.

The state has still to reply to Mr O’Doherty’s application.