Cox insists EU constitution is not a threat

The President of the European Parliament says the people of Ireland have nothing to fear from a European constitution.

The European Union is currently working on a constitution which aims to put certain principles into Europe-wide law.

Concerns have been raised that the proposed constitution could make abortion legal in Ireland.

However, the president of the EU Pat Cox says only the Irish people can decide on matters like that.

"All of these stories about abortion, divorce and so on, the people who will introduce that, or will not introduce that into Ireland are the Irish people full stop," he said.

"This is a dead duck of an argument that somehow that has a resurrection every time we have a debate."