Governments move closer on election issue

THE GOVERNMENT hopes to reach agreement on the outline principles governing the route to all party talks at an Anglo Irish summit in London next week.

Anglo Irish officials will tomorrow have their first meeting since the breakdown of the ceasefire. They will consider the contents of the communique to be issued after the planned meeting between the Taoiseach, Mr Bruton, and the British Prime Minister, Mr John Major.

Government sources, meanwhile, have indicated that some form of electoral mandate with a direct and speedy link to all party negotiations was the course being pursued by the two governments. The idea of a "clearing house to allow the parties to consider the options" something along the lines of the proposal of the Tanaiste, Mr Spring, for Dayton type proximity talks would also be involved.

The Government's acceptance of the possibility of elections in Northern Ireland was evident from its response to Mr Major's statement in the House of Commons yesterday.

Mr Spring said that he considered that the clear acceptance of the need for a "direct and speedy" link between possible elections and negotiations was a "05t element which could be put to the parties for consideration.

"Imposed elections would not work", he stated, "but agreed elections on the right terms might."

The Tanaiste had earlier noted that there was a division between those on one side who wanted elections before talks and those on the other side who wanted talks before elections. "What the governments have to do is to reconcile these differences. I think we should be looking at a package to do so and work on that as quickly as possible."

A Government spokesman said that it would look "positively" at the proposal from the SDLP leader, Mr John Hume, for two referendums to be held, one in the North, the other in the Republic. Mr Hume suggested in the House of Commons yesterday that two questions should be put to the Irish people they should be asked to eschew violence and approve all party talks.

The Taoiseach, Mr Bruton said last night what the referendum proposal was "a very promising idea" and had "a lot of merit".

Speaking on RTE television Mr Bruton said that such a poll would remove the "ideological basis for the Sinn Fein campaign, because Sinn Fein has been claiming that the 1918 elections authorised violence, and that authorisation had never been removed. It didn't, in fact, but that is their claim.

The referendum would allow the Irish people to remove the basis for the IRA campaign, the Taoiseach said.

With a two day debate on the peace process due to begin in the Dail this afternoon, Government sources have detected a shift in the British position on elections. In his response to the Mitchell report last month, Mr Major saw elections as the only alternative to decommissioning for Sinn Fein's entry into talks. Yesterday, he described elections as only one alternative.

Mr Bruton welcomed Mr Major's determination to keep the peace process alive and to proceed to all party talks as soon as possible. Asked if he believed that the ceasefire would be restored, Mr Bruton said "It is not possible to answer that in any way authoritatively just now. I don't know."

A Government spokesman said, last night that the Fianna Fail proposal for the appointment of Senator George Mitchell as a US envoy did not arise.