FINE GAEL leader Enda Kenny yesterday called on Taoiseach Brian Cowen to indicate when he intends to hold the second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.
Mr Kenny said he also wanted clarification from the Minister for Foreign Affairs about how the promised declarations on key issues such as tax laws and neutrality, and ethical issues such as abortion, can become legally binding.
Mr Kenny signalled that a "specific protocol" might be necessary if there is to be a reverse of last June's referendum result, where the No vote prevailed by 53 per cent to 47 per cent.
In the first formal statements from the leaders of all political parties in the Dáil to the package agreed at the European Council last week, Mr Kenny said that his party would give its full support to a Yes campaign.
Welcoming the more upfront nature of briefings to his party, he said that the Taoiseach "may take it that Fine Gael always has supported Ireland's position in Europe and will continue to do so".
However, the response of Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore was more circumspect. He said that the proposal to be put to the people was not yet a done deal. He said that a number of key issues needed to be satisfactorily addressed before the holding of another referendum.
His first concern, Mr Gilmore said, was the issue of workers' rights.
He referred to the Swedish case, Laval, which upheld the practice of bringing in foreign workers on contract who were paid less than the rates agreed with local unions.
He said: "There is a very real concern among working people that the way has been opened for an undermining of the levels of pay and working conditions which are accepted as the norm in this country and in most of the EU countries."
Mr Gilmore said this concern was not adequately taken up by Government.
He also expressed concern about what he said were unclear references to "education" and the "family". He said he hoped it did not involve the Charter of Fundamental Rights being watered down.
"This is not a done deal . . . If a second referendum is to be passed, then those concerns have to be addressed and the Opposition parties need to be involved in the process that addresses them," he said.
Earlier, the Taoiseach, in his statement, warned interest groups against using another referendum as a means to pressurise the Government into making concessions unrelated to Lisbon. No good would come of it, he said.
"Advancing sectoral or narrow interests in such a way, especially at this time, can be very damaging for this country."
He said the Government would work hard in the coming month to get a satisfactory outcome, at which point it would put the issue to another referendum.
However, Sinn Féin's Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin described the Government's approach as "arrogant".
He said that rerunning the Lisbon referendum was a denial of democracy and showed a complete lack of respect for the will of the people.
"The deal struck [in Brussels] will not address the substantive issues raised by the electorate time and time again during the referendum campaign," he said.