DEEP gloom has beset the peace process, with party leaders in Leinster House reacting with dismay to the IRA assertion, for the first time, that it will not meet the Mitchell recommendations on decommissioning weapons in parallel with talks.
An interview with an IRA representative in this week's Sinn Fein newspaper, An Phoblacht/Republican News, also states that the organisation still sees "the necessity for armed struggle", because "the necessary dynamic to move us all away from conflict" does not exist.
The interview makes no direct reference to last week's Anglo Irish communique and gives no indication of reinstating the cease fire.
The Tanaiste, Mr Spring, described the interview as "a very unhelpful statement and it is not making the contribution that we, want to see made to the whole process".
In an even more dejected view, the Fianna Fail leader, Mr Bertie Ahern, warned that positions were hardening and that "we are drifting off in different ways at a rate of knots" The hard line IRA interview had left him feeling "really depressed and pessimistic"
The "really bad line" in the interview related to the IRA statement that "attempts to impose as preconditions the Mitchell report recommendations, attempts to impose decommissioning, attempts to impose acceptance of the so called principle of majority consent, or unionist veto, attempts to impose this, that or the other principle as preconditions are a nonsense", Mr Ahern said.
He read this line as new, regrettable and very worrying. The IRA had never declared its position on the Mitchell recommendations and principles be cause of Mr John Major's declaration in the House of Commons that elections or decommissioning would pave the way to talks, he said.
Sinn Fein had joined the Forum For Peace and reconciliation, whose basis and terms of reference lay in the principle that participation in it and the exercise of the right to self determination would be resolved by exclusively peaceful and democratic means, Mr Ahern said.
The SDLP deputy leader, Mr Seamus Mallon said on Radio Ulster's Talkback. Could I put it straight back to them (the republican movement) and say, Come into the political process fully and, create the type of dynamic that can derive from peace. In my view if we do not have that peaceful context we're always going to be fighting an uphill battle.