The Fine Gael leader in the Seanad, Senator Maurice Manning, has criticised suggestions that the meeting between the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, and the Sinn Fein leader, Mr Gerry Adams, is equivalent to the meeting between Lloyd George and the Dail team in the Treaty negotiations of 1921.
That negotiating team represented a majority of the Irish people, he said.
"Provisional Sinn Fein, led by Mr Adams, does not, has never and never will represent a majority of the Irish people. It represents a very small minority."
Since 1949, all Taoisigh who met British prime ministers were "leaders of authentic Irish republicanism based on a mandate of a majority in the Dail and of the Irish people".
Mr Adams and his party "persisted in supporting a campaign of violence that was opposed by an overwhelming majority of the Irish people," he added.
It was a mistake for commentators to suggest any equivalence between yesterday's meeting and that of 1921, he said.