WHILE a glimmer of hope remains that the IRA can be persuaded to reinstate its cease-fire, the Government will make space for Sinn Fein. Not much. And not happily. For patience is a shrinking commodity within this Government.

Last night's statement said it all. Government Ministers were seriously concerned that Sinn Fein had not yet got the IRA to restore the ceasefire. And Sinn Fein's reaction to the latest IRA outrages provided no grounds for confidence that it was capable of pursuing normal democratic politics based on exclusively peaceful methods.

The focus was shifting back towards security measures. The Government was determined to face down the men of violence. And the multi-party talks in Northern Ireland were being looked to for evidence that the Ulster Unionist Party and the SDLP could come up with a political settlement acceptable to nationalists and unionists.

There was barely restrained anger that, in spite of the assistance provided to Sinn Fein by the Government, the IRA had murdered a garda and exploded a bomb among the citizens of Manchester. The bald public questions, posed by the Government last Monday, still stood: "Had Gerry Adams gone to the IRA to ask for a ceasefire and if not, why?" and "Does Sinn Fein continue to support the armed struggle of the IRA?"

Mr Adams went within a hair's breadth of answering the second question last night. He declined to describe the Manchester bombing in the same terms as he had used about Det Garda McCabe's murder - "wrong, totally wrong" - and the difference lay in the fact that the Manchester bombing had been authorised by the IRA.

In spite of the frustration and anger felt in Coalition circles, the parties are prepared to travel that extra mile to bring IRA violence to an end. That would be the easy part. The hard part would lie in all party negotiations on the future of Northern Ireland and the nature of an eventual political settlement. In between would be the question of illegally held weapons.

The IRA itself has charted the distance to be travelled in an internal document which set out the strategy behind its original ceasefire. The aim is a United 32-County Democratic Socialist Republic". And the means: "To construct an Irish nationalist consensus with international support on the basis of the dynamic contained in the Irish Peace initiative.

"This should aim for: the strongest possible political consensus between the Dublin Government, Sinn Fein and the SDLP; a common position on practical measures moving us towards our goal; a common nationalist negotiating position; and an international dimension in aid of the consensus, initially USA and EU.

It was important for activists to realise, the document said, that "the struggle is not over. Another Front has opened up and we should have the confidence and put in the effort to succeed on that front. We have the ability to carry on indefinitely."

There was no mention anywhere in that four-page document of the (IRA getting rid of its weapons. And it clearly wasn't envisaged.

Then John Major and the unionists made arms decommissioning a precondition to talks. Everything ground to a halt. And George Mitchell devised a clever compromise which would allow Sinn Fein into the talks process, provided the IRA would consider arms decommissioning in parallel with progress on substantive political issues.

Since then, most recently two weeks ago, the IRA described this decommissioning demand as "an absolute barrier to progress". It went on: "Let us nail completely the position on decommissioning. The IRA will not be decommissioning its weapons through either the front door the back doors. We will never leave nationalist areas defenceless this side of a final settlement."

IN spite of such hardline statements from the IRA, all-party talks were arranged on the basis that participants, including Sinn Fein, would subscribe to the Mitchell principles and that parallel decommissioning would take place. The governments were prepared to push the decommissioning issue down the agenda but they would not remove it completely.

The prize of peace was so seductive that many accommodations were made. Mr Adams and his supporters demanded entry to talks on the basis of their "democratic mandate" and in advance of an IRA ceasefire. Albert Reynolds was the most prominent politician to support that approach publicly. But that all died with the murder of Det Garda McCabe in Limerick.

The murder was viewed by Sinn Fein as far more damaging to its "struggle" than the Manchester bombing. It ran counter to IRA standing orders. And it gravely undermined the republican movement's overall strategy of creating and maintaining a pan-nationalist front. Killing a garda was on a totally different plane of republican importance from bombing and injuring 200 innocent English people.

The offer of all-party talks is still open to Sinn Fein. But only a few people in Government circles are holding their breath because of the decommissioning issue.