Euro Affairs Minister attacks National Platform

Dick Roche, the Minister for European Affairs, has accused a group campaigning for a ‘no’ vote in the Nice referendum of "running around in circles".

Mr Roche said the National Platform, which warned of a flood of Eastern European immigrants following EU enlargement, has now admitted that the issue is not relevant to the Nice Treaty.

Minister Roche said the National Platform and the No to Nice group should never have used the issue of immigration in their arguments against the treaty.

"The Irish people are a generous and hospitable people," he claimed. "We’ve never been racist in the past and I think it would be an absolutely extraordinary error if we allowed any interest group or pressure group to launch us on that particular road."