A group campaigning against the Nice Treaty has claimed the planned second referendum is unconstitutional and has called on the President to refer the issue to the Supreme Court.
The Peace and Neutrality Alliance (PANA) said yesterday that the Constitution decreed that the people had the right to make the "final" decision on questions of national policy.
"They have made that decision," said Mr Roger Cole of the Alliance, "and the Government is now seeking to have it changed."
Mr Cole said that the legislation to enable a second referendum was to be debated by the Dáil in early September.
He called on the President, Mrs McAleese, to summon a meeting of the Council of State to consider whether it would be appropriate to refer it to the Supreme Court for a test of its constitutionality once it passed the Dáil and Seanad.
He also announced that PANA was inviting contributions to a fund to pay for a possible legal case arguing that a second referendum would be illegal.
Mr Cole said that the former attorney general, Mr John Rogers, had said at the Burren Summer School that a second referendum would be constitutionally dubious. This was because of Article 6.1 of the Constitution which states: "All powers of government, legislative, executive and judicial, derive, under God, from the people, whose right it is to designate the rulers of the State and, in final appeal, to decide all questions of national policy, according to the requirements of the common good."
Mr Cole said: "The Irish people have already given their 'final' decision on the Nice Treaty."
He said the circumstances were different from when there was a second constitutional referendum on divorce, and on the proposed abolition of proportional representation.
"The question put to the people was different on each occasion," he said.
"The Irish people have never been asked to vote twice on exactly the same proposition."
While quoting Mr Rogers, who argued against acceptance of the Nice Treaty in last year's referendum, he said his group had not received specific advice from him nor had it asked him to act for them in any possible case.
While he said it would probably be possible to retain a legal team to take the case on a pro bono basis (in the public interest without charging a fee), a fund would be needed to cover the State's costs in the event of a case being lost.