Former attorney general Mr John Rogers has contradicted the Minister for Justice in relation to EU regulations covering divorce in Ireland.
In an article in The Irish Times earlier this month, Mr Rogers said the power of Irish citizens to influence decisions affecting their lives would be "significantly reduced" by the Treaty of Nice.
He gave an example of an EU regulation, which could have "profound effects" on Irish divorce laws. Under the regulation a person in the EU may apply for divorce, legal separation or annulment if resident in a particular country for a year.
Mr O'Donoghue responded, saying that under the Divorce Act 1996 the Irish courts might also grant a divorce to a person who was ordinarily resident in the State for one year. These judgments of the Irish courts, he said, would be recognised in other EU countries.
Mr O'Donoghue said he wanted to remind Mr Rogers that a motion was passed by both Houses of the Oireachtas allowing Ireland to opt into the measure and that this particular regulation relating to divorce, Brussels II, was adopted by the Council of Ministers on the basis of unanimity. "If the regulation did not suit Ireland, we did not have to be bound by it," he said.
But Mr Rogers said Mr O'Donoghue's attempts to suggest that the substance of this regulation was discussed and approved in both Houses of the Oireachtas was wrong.
In a statement yesterday Mr Rogers said it contradicted what was said in the Dail by Mr Frank Fahey, then a minister of state, on June 23rd, 1999, when he moved the Dail motion.
"Minister Fahey said the State wished to opt into discussions on these instruments from the beginning and that `work on both these instruments will be taken forward in a council working party and the outcome of discussions at working party level will be submitted in due course for approval by the Justice and Home Affairs Council'," he said.
Mr Rogers said there was no discussion by the Dail on the outcome of the working party discussions before adoption of the regulation by unanimous vote of the council at the end of May last year.
The implications were obvious, he said. The motion passed on June 23rd, 1999, was to satisfy the constitutional requirement of prior approval of both Houses of the Oireachtas in an amendment to the Amsterdam Treaty.
"That motion did not approve the outcome of the discussions on the proposed Council regulation on recognition and enforcement of divorce judgments as those discussions and their conclusion had not yet occurred."