MR Gerry Adams has indicated he will respond favourably to the Taoiseach's proposal for a meeting with Government officials. "When I've had the chance to study that, I will be coming at it very positively," the Sinn Fein leader told reporters yesterday.
Mr Adams called for public demonstrations in support of immediate all party talks and he urged republicans to take part in them.
He was speaking after a private meeting with the former Taoiseach, Mr Albert Reynolds, at a hotel near Dundalk, Co Louth. Mr Reynolds expressed himself satisfied with assurances from Mr Adams on the attitude of the Sinn Fein leadership to last Friday's bomb attack in London.
The former Taoiseach said he had asked Mr Adams a "straight question" about Sinn Fein's position on the Canary Wharf bomb. "His answer was straightforward and clear to me it would not be his or Sinn Fein's choice to do what was done last Friday." Mr Reynolds believed if a definite date was set for all party talks, the IRA would call another ceasefire immediately.
Referring to the position of the unionist parties, Mr Reynolds asked "Who's afraid to sit down and talk about peace nobody is enforcing anything on them, just to get around the table."
Mr Adams was asked to comment on the Taoiseach's obvious anger and feeling of betrayal, expressed in his Dail speech, over the bombing. Mr Adams said he had not yet studied Mr Bruton's speech "There can be no doubt that people were shocked, and that includes me, by what happened on Friday night.
"There can be no doubt that people were surprised by the timing of what happened. No one, least of all the Irish Government, can deny the fact that they were told on a consistent and constant basis that this peace process needed to be fed, to be consolidated, to be moved forward, if was to be sustained.
"Secondly, Sinn Fein is absolutely committed to democratic agreement and to dialogue and the commitments which I signed some time ago with Mr Reynolds, which he and I and Mr Hume shook hands on and which, later Mr Bruton and I and Dick Spring signed up for I have honoured every single one of those commitments.
"So let none of us point the linger of blame at each other over, what occurred. If there is to be blame apportioned, it should be only so that the lesson is learned, and it can move forward.
"The main responsibility for the breakdown of the peace process lies with the British. The IRA has, to take responsibility for its actions but the British government has to be faced up to and, brought round to the point of democratic negotiations. All party talks immediate substantive negotiations are required."
Asked if he and the rest of the Sinn Fein leadership could persuade the IRA to call another ceasefire, Mr Adams replied "It is" going to be very difficult to get the peace process back on the rails." He said the last 18 months had proved that "a peace process is much more than a cessation we had cessations, we didn't have peace.
Mr Adams was critical of the" Government's decision to suspends meetings between ministers and Sinn Fein. "The reality is that I represent a party which has a democratic mandate. For a very long time, people in high places refused to recognise that. Marginalisation, isolation, demonisation and the killing campaign against our members was the result of all of that.
"It didn't work and I don't think that Mr Bruton and I want to be measured should run away from his responsibility, and his responsibility is, as Taoiseach of this State, to deal with all political parties and all political leaders on the basis of equality."