If Ireland rejects the Nice Treaty we will be removed from the decision-making processes in Europe and will be "suspect" when alliances are formed in the future, according to Mr Kieran Crowley, chairman of the Small Firms Association (SFA).

Ireland has a responsibility to "pull eastern bloc countries up the ladder with us", he said. "Ireland must remain at the centre of Europe because that is the position of opportunity," he told the SFA's annual conference in Dublin yesterday.

"A small state must be a smart state. We must have a central involvement in creating new rules for the extension of market opportunities and in drawing up regulations which may help or hinder business."

Mr Crowley told delegates that Nice would not cost jobs and Ireland would not lose money as had been argued by elements within the No campaign. He said when Ireland joined the EEC in 1972, the number of people at work in the State was 1.05 million but that figure now stood at 1.75 million. The average take-home pay in Ireland is now the third highest in the euro zone, he added.

"And we will not cede power... The Irish talent for horse-trading has enabled us to influence and to frame the EU agenda. The Irish interest has prevailed over raw numerical imbalance and I have every confidence that our politicians and our public servants will continue to punch above our weight," Mr Crowley said.

He did "not like the fear of immigrants, the suggestion that ... we will be overwhelmed by an influx of EU citizens opting to live in Ireland".

"I admire the eastern European countries that emerged from the totalitarian regimes and have struggled so hard to participate in the market economies of the western world. I worked as a consultant in Poland for three months and I saw it up close in Warsaw in the URSUS tractor conglomerate. Remember how we applauded Lech Walesa and Solidarity? Are we to spurn them now? We owe them a helping hand to pull them up the ladder with us."