The Government has no plans to seek membership of NATO or the WEU, or any military alliance, but will join the Partnership for Peace (PFP) in the latter half of this year, according to the Minister for Foreign Affairs.

Mr Andrews told the Fine Gael spokesman on foreign affairs, Mr Gay Mitchell, the State's member ship of PFP would not require a referendum to amend the Constitution, but he said the European elections in June could be seen as an "indicative" poll.

He said there were currently 43 states in the PFP, 24 of which were not members of NATO. All EU neutral states were members, other than the Republic, as well as Switzerland and Russia.

Mr Andrews accepted that at the last general election it was Fianna Fail policy not to join PFP, but he refused to acknowledge that a U-turn had taken place, remarking that the party had "changed its mind".

Asked by Mr John Gormley (Green, Dublin South East) how the European elections could be "indicative", Mr Andrews said the electorate would have the opportunity to support politicians from parties which shared their views on the issue.

However, Mr Gormley described this as "absurd" on the grounds that a situation where Fianna Fail, Labour, Fine Gael and the Green Party got one seat each in the European Parliament would be seen as an endorsement of membership of the PFP. He also claimed the Taoiseach had previously indicated that a referendum would be held before membership of the PFP.

Mr Andrews said the Government had sought the advice of the Attorney General on whether an amendment to the Constitution would be required, and he was happy to put the text of that advice in the Dail library.