FIANNA Fail's foreign affairs spokesman, Mr Ray Burke, has suggested there may be a concerted US campaign to encourage Ireland to abandon neutrality.
He was speaking at the Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs, after an address by the US Assistant Secretary of State on Non-Proliferation, Mr Bob Einhorn.
Mr Burke said he found it "slightly coincidental that you are joining us and speaking to us on nuclear non-proliferation at this stage".
Just two weeks ago, he said, there was major US representation from NATO at a conference "in Malahide, while during the summer the US aircraft carrier, the JFK, had visited Dublin.
In addition, he said, referring to a US diplomat accompanying Mr Einhorn: "You are being accompanied by a gentleman seen as a lobbyist for Partnership for Peace and our membership of it."
Mr Burke said he saw the concept of "Partnership for Peace within NATO" as an oxymoron. "Am I to see any significance in your presence here in the context of ongoing lobbying for this country to give up its treasured policy of military neutrality?" he asked.
Before Mr Einhorn responded, the committee chairman, Mr Alan Dukes, said that "not every member of the committee takes the same view as Deputy Burke on Partnership for Peace (PFP)".
PFP is a NATO-sponsored body through which NATO and non-NATO members engage in joint training, operations and manoeuvres. The White Paper on foreign policy published earlier this year suggested Ireland should consider participation with a view to training for peacekeeping exercises.
Last week the Tanaiste, Mr Spring, said he supported such a move.
Mr Einhorn said he was in Ireland having attended meetings in Edinburgh last week. The US embassy had asked him to visit Ireland because the Irish were interested in disarmament and related issues, and would like to exchange views with him.
"It's not my mission to sell you Partnership for Peace or to talk Ireland out of neutrality. No one would give me as difficult a brief as that."
He disputed Mr Burke's suggestion that "Partnership for Peace within NATO" was an oxymoron. What NATO is doing in Bosnia is making peace. The presence of Ifor has meant we have had essentially no violence in one of the most violent conflicts of a generation. To call the contributors to this effort partners for peace is not a misnomer," he said.
Mr Einhorn's address concerned the US's efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation.
"The area of real concern for us is the one region in the world where there is potential for two nuclear armed rivals to square off against each other," he said.
These two rivals were "India and Pakistan, both of which have active nuclear weapons programmes... who have fought three major wars, one of which dismembered Pakistan. Pakistan feels deep down that India doesn't recognise the legitimacy of an independent Pakistan.
The US was concerned, therefore, that these two states could deploy nuclear weapons "within minutes of each other's major population centres".
He said India's refusal to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty outlawing nuclear weapons tests was worrying. India refuses to agree not to test nuclear weapons unless those states that already have nuclear weapons agree a stringent timetable for nuclear disarmament.