THE most patriotic act the IRA could commit would be to call an immediate, total and final cease fire "as an act of independence", the Fianna Fail leader, Mr Bertie Ahern, has said.
In a pre-Christmas assessment of the "bleak and sombre" mood arising from the situation in Northern Ireland, he said that, above all, what would be needed in 1997 would be "political courage and leadership, a determination to put peace first and last above all other political objectives."
Condemning the weekend IRA attack in a children's hospital, as well as the booby trap bomb attack on a prominent republican.
Mr Ahern also said the deteriorating situation showed, in stark relief, "the political inadequacy of the British government's conduct of the peace process."
"The British government should not have peremptorily brushed aside John Hume's peace initiative, and everyone must look at it again," he added.
However, he also warned that the IRA need not expect that new governments in London and Dublin would be in a position, even if they so wished, to pick up the pieces "and rescue the republican movement from all the long term consequence of multiple acts of violence, resulting in death, injury or destruction, that may have occurred in the meantime.
He and the British Labour Party leader, Mr Tony Blair, were both agreed that they would facilitate those genuinely seeking peace, but would have nothing to do with the tactical use of violence.
Deploring the IRA's attack on the policeman guarding the DUP general secretary, Mr Nigel Dodds, he described it as "a heinous and inhuman act as well as being a direct attack on democracy".
It was also intentionally and recklessly provocative. To cite as a defence the murder of Sinn Fein vice-president Drumm, in a hospital 20 years ago, is to sink to the lowest common denominator," he added.
There should be no illusions about such actions as they do not reinforce, but undermine, all efforts to re-establish a viable and inclusive peace process.
"The only thing such an attack reinforces, unfortunately, is the more and more absolute determination of unionists and the present British government to exclude Sinn Fein from talks, even in the event of a renewed and unequivocal ceasefire.
The loyalist retaliation was "equally to be deplored." Planting bombs was incompatible with participation in the democratic process, which required disassociation, not just from such individual acts, but from any paramilitary organisation that would carry them out.
"There should be no fudging on the Mitchell principles. They should apply equally and impartially across the board. The breach must be repaired, before the talks resume, by those responsible," he said.
No understanding should be shown for acts of terrorism from any quarter, "regardless of our genuine appreciation of the praiseworthy efforts of those who have sought to exercise the utmost restraining influence over the last nine months".
However, the same terms for participation in the talks, particularly after breaches of a ceasefire, should be available to all, "and any attempted discrimination by the British government or by others must be firmly challenged by the Irish government."
Criticising the British government's handling of the peace process, Mr Ahern said its "inflexibility" was surely a sign of weakness. Their "failure to honour" the promise of the Prime Minister Mr John Major, to permit participation in talks if violence ceased was "a real betrayal of earlier statesmanship, on which history will not reflect kindly."
The only alternative to violence was dialogue, which was why it was insane after the ceasefire toe obstruct the path to dialogue, he said.
It was difficult to understand why the republican movement should allow its action to be dictated by the British government, particularly one that did not seem to have any enthusiasm for "the inconvenient political consequences of a renewed ceasefire in its dying weeks of office".
Supporting the appeal by the SDLP leader, Mr John Hume, for an IRA ceasefire, Mr Ahern said their continued violence, "which is received as an expression of contempt by the rest of the people of Ireland" would make it more and more difficult to re-establish an effective democratic nationalist consensus that underlay the process in 1994.
Last night the British government declined to comment on Mr Ahern's criticisms.