THE main block to all party talks in Northern Ireland is still the decommissioning question. Until that issue is resolved, there is no chance of an IRA ceasefire. And, because mutual decommissioning is at issue, the loyalist parties could eventually be forced out of multi party talks.
This is the conundrum facing the two governments. There has to be a voluntary commitment to the talks process, just as there has to be a voluntary commitment to decommissioning. The governments can urge and facilitate; they cannot compel. The parties have to agree the rules under which they will sit around the table.
As Northern Ireland teetered on the brink of a full scale resumption of violence, John Bruton took what damage limitation steps he could during the special day long debate in the Dail.
He was very tough on the IRA. For the second day running, the Taoiseach stepped outside the blurred boundary of a pan nationalist circle and accused the IRA of using fascist tactics. The strategy of the Armalite and the ballot box was totally unacceptable to all democratic parties in the Republic, he said, and the IRA would not be allowed to bomb its way to the negotiating table.
Against a background of heightened security in Dublin, because of a threat of loyalist bombs, Mr Bruton sought to reassure militant loyalists that people in the Republic had "no agenda for a progressive takeover of Northern Ireland against the wishes of a majority of the people there". There was, he said, "no pan nationalist front, intent on pursuing a malign agenda to undermine the identity or heritage of unionists or their involvement in the UK".
THE Taoiseach left it to the junior Fine Gael Minister Hugh Coveney to punch home the message of unionist intransigence. The Mitchell report of last January contained the basis for progress, Mr Coveney said, and yet the unionist parties were refusing to co operate.
Ian Paisley's DUP and Bob McCartney's UKUP were so inflexible that they didn't even warrant mention. But Mr Coveney said the UUP had last week rejected proposals for decommissioning agreed by two governments. Instead, it had proposed "a return to the so called Washington Three criterion involving substantial up front decommissioning ahead of any talks".
And, in what was probably the harshest criticism of Ulster Unionists during the debate, Mr Coveney said: "To insist on unworkable decommissioning preconditions is, in essence, to ensure that decommissioning will never happen."
The implication was clear. If David Trimble and his party could not bring themselves to agree with the decommissioning proposals of the governments, they must be prepared to shoulder some of the responsibility for tipping Northern Ireland back into a cycle of violence.
It wasn't as if the two governments had failed to offer full consultation and co operation. The main provisions of a Decommissioning Bill had been shown to Mr Trimble's party in advance and had been broadly accepted. In addition, the governments had promised to introduce decommissioning legislation within two months so as to complement agreement on a comprehensive agenda for substantive negotiations.
The necessary measures were clearly identified, but unionists were not prepared to co operate. It was a Catch 22 situation. In order to agree an agenda for talks on a political settlement, it was first necessary to decide how decommissioning would be addressed within those talks - not least because of the involvement of the loyalist parties.
And while it was possible for substantive talks to start without Sinn Fein and in the absence of an IRA ceasefire a point made by a number of Government speakers - it would be impossible to bring them to a conclusion without loyalist participation.
The threat posed to the loyalist ceasefire by the IRA's bombing campaign was of particular concern to Proinsias De Rossa, who believed the IRA was trying to force them into retaliation.
Mary Harney favoured a return to the notion of an exclusive settlement, involving the SDLP, the Ulster Unionist Party and the two governments.
BERTIE Ahern didn't hold back when it came to criticising the breakdown of the ceasefire. There was to be no question in loyalist minds that Dublin politicians supported IRA bombers in any way.
The resumption by the IRA of its campaign of violence was, the Fianna Fail leader said, "an act of criminal irresponibility" and he expressed his "dismay and revulsion" over last Monday's bombs. It was "a deeply unpatriotic act" which struck at "the lives, security and prosperity of the people of Ireland, North and South".
He found it hardest to understand "the political defeatism, cowardice and the political illusions of the IRA". Why, Mr Ahern asked, did the IRA not trust its skilled political leaders, rather than seek to return to the futility of 25 years of violence?
But if the breaches of the ceasefire were entirely the responsibility of the IRA, the breakdown of the peace process was, he said, largely the fault of others. In that regard, Mr Ahern blamed the British and Irish governments and the unionist parties for failing to make progress.
Dick Spring came in to wrap up. As the Garda Commissioner sanctioned an increase in security measures in Dublin and on roads leading North, the Tanaiste welcomed a possible softening in Mr David Trimble's approach to the decommissioning issue. And he wondered why some politicians, by elevating guns to a place of primacy, had given paramilitary quartermasters an unprecedented place in the political process in Northern Ireland.
As the Government braced itself for a possible loyalist backlash, decommissioning remained the key to progress in Northern Ireland.
