AS THE Taoiseach prepares for his first meeting on Thursday with the new British Prime Minister, he has accused the Sinn Fein leader, Mr Gerry Adams, of issuing a "menacing" reminder that the IRA has not gone away.
Mr Bruton was commenting on a speech by Mr Adams in Belfast on Sunday in which he said: "What is very important 16 years later is that we see that our struggle is once again on a very high threshold. Where is Margaret Thatcher? Where is John Major? They have gone away, you know."
This said Mr Bruton, was "a menacing echo of an earlier comment in a speech by the president of Sinn Fein that the IRA has not gone away". At a rally in 1994 Mr Adams said of the IRA: "They haven't gone away, you know".
While Thursday's meeting with Mr Blair will be dominated by Northern Ireland related issues, Mr Bruton yesterday set out an ambitious agenda for co-operation between Ireland and Britain in education, the environment, food safety, homelessness and tackling organised crime.
The Tanaiste, Mr Spring, has said he has yet to be convinced that there is any immediate prospect of an IRA ceasefire. In an interview in this newspaper today, Mr Spring says that while he wants the political process to be inclusive, "we can't be held up to ransom" if there is not a ceasefire.
Mr Spring will attend Thursday's meeting, and the new Northern Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam, is also likely to be there. Prospects for the multi party talks, which are due to resume on June 3rd as well as ways of avoiding another Drumcree stand off during the marching season, will be discussed.
Mr Bruton yesterday attempted to broaden the Anglo Irish agenda, saying there were many new possibilities for co-operation in regard to Northern Ireland, bilaterally and within Europe".
He said environmental issues, for example, including Sellafield and nuclear power, had been controversial between Ireland and Britain. Mr Bruton quoted approvingly the British Labour Party's election manifesto which pledged to "push environmental concerns higher up the international agenda" and "strengthen cooperation in the European Union on environmental issues".
This positive approach, he said, would make it easier to resolve differences over Sellafield and help the governments to work together on cleaning up the Irish Sea and tackling global warming.
The new British government's commitment "to wire up schools, libraries, colleges and hospitals to the information superhighway" opened up huge opportunities for Ireland, he said. There could be savings on educational hardware and software investments as well as cooperation on particular courses and subjects.
New Labour was committed to establishing a "National Grid for Learning" to help teachers update their skills, as well as a new University for Industry. Mr Bruton said he would like Ireland to have inputs to and benefits from both institutions.
He also proposed greater co operation in the fight against organised crime, joint initiatives to deal with the plight of Irish people who are homeless in Britain and cooperation to ensure food safety.