The Government will try to persuade the SDLP to drop its opposition to the proposed citizenship referendum during a briefing this week.
The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, will write to the SDLP leader, Mr Durkan, offering a briefing on the Government's position. Mr Durkan sharply criticised the referendum in a letter to Mr Ahern last week.
The move comes as the Dáil prepares this week to debate the legislation necessary to hold the referendum. Opposition parties are to table a motion asking for the referendum to be deferred.
Last night the Minister for Education and Science, Mr Dempsey, rejected calls to abandon the poll and expressed concern at the SDLP's attitude to the referendum due on June 11th.
"We don't see this as a change to the Good Friday agreement and I don't think it is helpful that the SDLP (does)," Mr Dempsey told RTÉ's Week in Politics.
He added: "The decision has been made in relation to the referendum. It will take place on the 11th of June.
"We are proposing that we bring ourselves more into line with what is the situation in every other country in Europe and most countries in the world, that being born in a country does not automatically allow you to claim citizenship. That is all we are doing. It is a simple, straight forward proposal."
However, the SDLP leader, Mr Durkan, remained unhappy: "We now have a situation where we appear to be on an approach that borders on drive-by change to the Constitution and the Good Friday agreement."
Meanwhile, it has been confirmed that the British government has received two sets of legal advice assuring it that the referendum does not contravene the agreement. The legal advice, from Northern Ireland Office and Foreign Office lawyers, was received in early April, British sources told The Irish Times last night. "Nobody intended for the citizenship clause in the agreement to give citizenship to people who do not have any connection with the island of Ireland," a British official told The Irish Times.
Though the British remarks will come as a boost to the Government, the Department of Foreign Affairs is understood to want London to agree to a joint declaration.
The debate on the legislation needed to hold the referendum will be held in the Dáil this week, though a vote will not be held until the following week.
Fine Gael, the Labour Party and the Greens have combined on a motion seeking the referral of the referendum to the Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution.
The handling of the referendum issue so far by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Mr McDowell, has caused concern amongst some other Ministers, The Irish Times understands. In particular, the Minister's decision to seize upon the number of non-national births only then to move the debate onto the integrity of citizenship laws is regarded as a serious misjudgment.
Questioned by Labour European Parliament candidate Ms Ivana Bacik yesterday, the Minister said 23.9 per cent of all births in Dublin maternity hospitals last year were to non-nationals. "In 2003 787 Nigerian children were born to Nigerian parents in Ireland in Irish hospitals," he told Today FM's Sunday Supplement programme.
However, the Minister, yet again, failed to offer a breakdown to show how many of the births were to non-national mothers living legally here.
He went on: "I am not shifting my ground. I am saying our citizenship law is being abused. There is plenty of evidence of it. Anybody who has two eyes in their head can see it."
Meanwhile, the leader of the Labour Party, Mr Pat Rabbitte, will formally announce that Labour will campaign against the referendum when he speaks in this week's Dáil debate. Members of the party's national executive council criticised the party's stand on the issue up to now during a joint meeting with the parliamentary Labour Party last night.
