Minister for Justice Michael McDowell has called on republicans to reach out to unionists in Northern Ireland and claimed that the two communities were drifting further apart.
Following recent rioting by loyalist groups in Belfast, Mr McDowell said he did not believe it would bring down the Good Friday agreement, but it could be deeply damaging to the prospects for reconciliation between the two communities.
He said the first challenge for all republicans was to respect the orange panel of the Tricolour and to develop a sense of Irishness which included Ulster Scots and Anglo Irish. "It must reach out to those people, not polarise Northern society," he explained.
"The two communities are drifting further and further apart. That's wrong for Ireland and it's wrong for the children of both communities going forward."
It was for genuine republicans "such as myself" to rearticulate a vision of Ireland where reconciliation of orange and green was the centrepiece of progress.
He criticised "the foolish idea being proposed by Sinn Féin at the moment that Westminster elections should in Catholic areas be elections to Dáil Éireann and in Protestant areas be elections to Westminster".
Speaking to journalists during the Progressive Democrats' one- day parliamentary meeting in Dublin, Mr McDowell also said he was confident that IRA decommissioning would be completed soon.
"I've indicated that I expect that over the next few weeks the decommissioning process will be completed in a number of steps and it will be over relatively soon," he said.