Ireland’s fundamental interests will be damaged “if we stand on the margins or allow ourselves to be isolated”, Taoiseach Enda Kenny has told the Dáil.
During a special sitting to mark Europe day, Mr Kenny said he was "greatly saddened" that the "shine" had gone off Ireland "and that we are not regarded as good team players any more by some of our European colleagues".
"Sometimes difficult and unwelcome things have to be said" but "Ireland needs to play a positive and constructive role in the life of the Union because it is the best way to promote and defend our national interests".
As some 30 members of the diplomatic corps watched proceedings from the public gallery Mr Kenny also stressed that that EU member states "retain the right to determine the tax mix most suited to their economic circumstances, whatever those circumstances might be at any given moment.
"For Ireland out 12.5 per cent rate of corporation tax is and will remain a cornerstone of our economic policy. It cannot be changed without our consent" and "that consent will not be forthcoming".
He added that "it does nobody credit to call it into question or to seek to link movement on this issue to relief elsewhere".
European Commissioner Maire Geoghegan Quinn, who addressed the Dáil also confirmed Ireland's autonomy over its corporation tax rate. She said "there can be no change in the rate of corporation tax in Ireland or in any other member state without the unanimous support" of all 27 members.
Mr Kenny also said he remained "fully confident that we will be able to reduce the current rate" of interest Ireland pays on its EU/IMF loans.
He said the independence of the European Central Bank was "quite rightly closely guarded and firmly entrenched in the Treaties" but "there may be ways in which to improve its accountability".
Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin said the ECB "deserves greater attention". He said the bank "does not appear to have the humility required to evolve or the diversity to encourage rigorous debate on policy alternatives. Its defensiveness in the face of criticism serves no positive public purpose."
He said that "raising interest rates after a crisis has begun and doing so again before it is over has deeply damaged the credibility of both the mandate given to the Bank and its often rigid orthodoxies".
Sinn Féin spokesman on foreign affairs Pádraig MacLochlainn said that Ireland was "being asked to cede even more power to the European commission and the European Central Bank".
Richard Boyd Barrett (PBP, Dun Laoghaire) said "it beggars belief that when this country is being crucified" by EU loans that the Government wanted to celebrate Europe day. "It's a sick joke," he said.