THE President, Mrs Robinson, will visit Manchester on Saturday in a gesture of goodwill and solidarity in the aftermath of the IRA attack in which more than 200 people were injured.
Mr Michael Heseltine, the Deputy Prime Minister, was there yesterday when he announced an aid package of more than Pounds 21 million to start the restoration of the bomb damaged city centre.
Meanwhile, the Prime Minister, Mr John Major, said yesterday he "could have wept" when the IRA resumed its campaign of violence with the Docklands bomb last February. But he again vowed that terrorists would not be allowed to derail the multi party talks continuing, at Stormont. And he repeated his view that the IRA was only isolating itself with its "intolerable behaviour."
During a wide ranging interview on Classic FM radio the Prime Minister said: "I could have wept when it progress towards peace began to be stalled. The return to violence was certainly a considerable setback."
And he found it hard to understand how the resumption of violence could be justified, given the changes taking place in Northern Ireland. "For generations people have said 'How do we get the politicians sitting together around the table?"'. Everything had been done to ensure that the parties could sit down together and discuss the problems that concerned them all, "then you have this fresh outbreak of violence", said Mr Major.
Pledging to continue with the constitutional parties, Mr Major said: "What I hope we're going to see - there's no sign of it yet,
I have to say - but I hope the IRA will come to their senses and decide they have got to stop this campaign of violence. What they have done is isolate themselves. They had supporters and people who understood their cause. They are losing those supporters daily ... Their behaviour is intolerable in every respect ... But they are not going to stop us continuing to discuss with democratic politicians what the future of Northern Ireland should be."