The Sinn Fein leadership is seeking permission to have Westminster MPs for Northern Ireland attend and participate in Dail business. The Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution is examining the possibility.

Under the Sinn Fein plan, outlined yesterday in Dublin, the existing 18 MPs would be automatically accorded membership of the Dail - without voting rights. The party also claims the North's electorate should be allowed "send representatives to the Irish legislature".

Eighteen Sinn Fein members of the new Northern Ireland Assembly yesterday spent several hours in Leinster House in a series of meetings with Government officials, the Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton, and the Labour leadership.

Urging cross-party support for allowing MPs attend the Dail, the Sinn Fein TD for Cavan-Monaghan, Mr Caoimhghin O Caolain, said that, ultimately, his party would like to see the right to vote extended to MPs.

Sinn Fein president Mr Gerry Adams said allowing the Northern electorate to vote in presidential elections and referendums in the Republic would be "a progressive step, fully in accord with the Good Friday Agreement".

However, allowing such voting rights for citizens registered on election lists in Northern Ireland would require a constitutional amendment.

The granting of consultative rights for MPs to attend the Dail was an internal matter and, according to sources in Leinster House, could be arranged under existing rules. "The President is from Belfast. She is the head of State but she has no vote [in the Republic]", he said.

Meanwhile, the electorate that returned him (Mr Adams) and Mr Martin McGuinness to Westminster did not want them to take the oath of allegiance, he said. Irrespective of the oath, Sinn Fein MPs would not take their seats because they "would have no interest in deepening the connection" with Westminster.