The Union of Students of Ireland claimed yesterday it had received "shallow answers" from the Taoiseach and the Government about the Irish position on the war with Iraq.
In an address to the USI annual congress in Killarney yesterday, the outgoing president, Mr Colm Jordan, also called on the Attorney General, Mr Rory Brady, to declare a definite position on the war.
Mr Jordan said the Taoiseach had said: "Given the lack of legal consensus, the Government is not prepared to describe the Coalition action as illegal under international law.
"Is this the ruling of our Attorney General? Why can we not have a definite position from the Attorney General?" Mr Jordan asked.
"This nation stood up and asked questions of this Government about its stance on war, neutrality and the use of Shannon Airport for military planes. We asked deep questions and got shallow answers," Mr Jordan said. Ireland could not truly call itself neutral compared to its "natural" EU partners, he added.
Austria, Finland, and Sweden had made it clear that they regard military action against Iraq without a fresh UN resolution as illegal and would not help war efforts in any way.
The justification for the use of Shannon by US warplanes had been "nothing short of embarrassing", he said.
The excuse that they had to allow US aircraft to use Shannon to protect Irish jobs and support Irish workers employed by US firms simply did not stand up to scrutiny.
"The most fundamental point is we cannot allow our foreign policy to be dictated by financial interests, for once upon a time Iraq spent heavily in the Irish beef industry to feed its troops, the same troops who propped up an evil regime.
"Would we have then said that no planes could land in Shannon in order to keep a customer happy?" he asked.