After leading Labour for 15 years, he says he has more to give

DICK SPRING, who has served in more coalition combinations than any other leader, can't see himself being in politics in 20 years. Yet he feels he has a lot more to contribute on the national political stage.

If he is returned to government after the general election, he is not interested in succeeding Padraig Flynn as EU Commissioner in 1999.

"I want to spend more time in Kerry, not in Brussels. I can be very honest with you in that. My commitment is to Kerry, to the Labour Party and to working here domestically. All of my commitment is to doing that."

He also has an "open mind" about being Minister for Foreign Affairs again if the Rainbow Coalition forms the next government.

Coming to the end of an action packed 4 1/2 years as Tanaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Spring has yet to be convinced there is any immediate prospect of an IRA ceasefire.

He expects the new British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, whom he will meet in London on Thursday, to demonstrate the same personal commitment on Northern Ireland as John Major.

The EU is still a terrible problem for Britain, irrespective of the change in government, he says, sitting in the room in Iveagh House where he met Mr Blair just months ago, and a common European defence policy is not going to arise within the next 10 years.

Dick Spring outlines the manner in which he alone, as Labour leader, arrived at the decision to enter an electoral pact with Fine Gael and Democratic Left, and close off any arrangement with Fianna Fail.

He also deals with "the inconsistency of the criticism" from Fianna Fail about that decision. He was accused of "Spring wants power at any price", he says. "In fact, I had just put away half the option. I am entitled to the freedom to say what I want to do with the Labour Party."

As to Fianna Fail's presentation of him as arrogant, a characteristic picked up in a recent opinion poll, how does he respond?

"Humbly," he says.

"I know there is a sinister thing.

If you want to badmouth Spring, the way to do it is to connect him to that word. I don't think that that holds up."

He has been out and about in 26 constituencies since Christmas, he says, and if there was that perception among the public, there would be a resentment factor. He doesn't think it is there.

He had wide consultations with colleagues, he says, over a fairly long period about Labour's electoral strategy for this election. He had a long discussion with the parliamentary party on the Wednesday before the decision.

"In that sense, I had no doubt at all but that the strategy I was going to outline would be overwhelmingly accepted by the parliamentary party and by Labour's national conference."

Asked why he apparently did not inform his ministers of his decision before announcing it, he responds that, in fairness, it was factually correct to say one was hearing it for the first time because it was only stated emphatically for the first time, as he had intended doing all along, to the broader party at conference.

A more controversial strategy, however, was the other sole decision taken by Mr Spring in late 1992 to go into government with Fianna Fail. His advisers had divided evenly on that question after he had met Mr Albert Reynolds in the Berkeley Court hotel on that December 13th. What led him to come to that decision at the time?

"Well, just to nail one thing very clearly: I don't think that Albert Reynolds and I ever discussed the £8 billion EU money, quite frankly, just to get a factual confirmation of what had happened at the Edinburgh summit,"

he says, killing off one of the great myths that the Labour Party was only interested in spending those Ecus.

"IT WAS a difficult time. I don't think people have ever fully appreciated the options, or rather the lack of options, that existed in 1992 because of the results of the election campaign.

"Fine Gael had very explicitly ruled out any coalition with Democratic Left. It would have been very difficult for Labour to go into government at that stage with a rainbow coalition without DL for historical reasons.

"The crucial factor was Northern Ireland. There was a very distinct possibility of peace. I got information in relation to it which had been handed down from Charles Haughey to Albert Reynolds. Albert Reynolds shared it with me and it wasn't shared with anybody else.

"If you put everything else on a weighing scales, if there was an influencing factor at the end of the day which helped me to overcome a lot of the historical difficulties, a lot of the difficulties both within the party and with the public, it would have been Northern Ireland."

He had a strong conviction for a long time that the trust which had to be developed ultimately on this island was between Fianna Fail and the unionist community. There would have been traditionally a better relationship between the unionists and Fine Gael, or the Labour Party for that matter.

"I felt that there was possibly a role to be played in bridging that gap," says the man who asked for the Foreign Affairs brief to be able to handle day to day developments in the North in that Fianna Fail/Labour government.

Turning to the sense of betrayal felt by many Labour voters when he gave them the option for government they least wanted in 1992, Mr Spring acknowledges that he knows from talking to people, and from his own correspondence, that "a certain group of people felt betrayed in that they had voted for Labour and Labour went into government with Fianna Fail.

"I think it was almost as much with Albert Reynolds as with Fianna Fail because in that election both leaders of the two bigger parties had lost 10 seats apiece, so they were both obviously losers in that election."

There was also a sustained media attack on the Labour Party for about two months at that time, he says. Some of the papers did not want Fianna Fail in government, some did not want Labour in government, "so we got caught in the crossfire both ways. But I think that at the end of the day, you assess things on their merit in terms of what we have done over the last four years.

Uniquely in his 16 year old political career, Dick Spring has been in government with three different coalition combinations. What is the difference between a Fianna Fail and Fine Gael led government?

"SURE I'll write that in my book," he quips. "I think Fianna Fail tends to be more pragmatic as a matter of course and Fine Gael would be ideological. There are probably more policy debates at the present time than there would have been in the previous coalition."

On the working relationship he has forged with his old ideological enemy, John Bruton, he says: "We are both 10 years on almost to the day. The circumstances of the Eighties were extraordinarily different, both in terms of the state of the country and the state of the parties.

"That made that particular personal relationship and the wider situation quite difficult.

"I don't think that either of us at that time understood or fully appreciated the sensitivities which were necessary in a coalition situation. The situation is totally different now.

He also says that, on a personal level, he has a lot of respect for the Fianna Fail leader, Bertie Ahern. "We worked very closely together in government. I certainly have always found him very honourable to deal with. I have no problems with Bertie Ahern. The issues which faced me weren't in relation to whether I trust Bertie Ahern or not."

The Government's contribution to the peace process, the development of the US dimension, and the working relationship with Britain are listed by the Tanaiste as his biggest achievements in Foreign Affairs.

He mentions particularly the "tough nitty gritty work" of government in the negotiation of the Downing Street Declaration, the Joint Framework Document and the ground rules paper. "We have set it up to be carried on again in June.

He is proud of involving the Irish people in the formulation of the first White Paper on Foreign Policy, the tripling of development aid, and the conduct of the presidency of the EU last year.

He turns to Ireland's position in the medium term in the EU, with the convergence of European Monetary Union, the end of structural funds, the reform of the CAP.

"There are huge agenda items coming down the tracks but, as with all issues, you have to rise to meet the challenges, be they in terms of CAP, financial perspectives, enlargement, the currency. I think we are quite well positioned and, in the European context, we are regarded as fairly honourable dealers. I think we will fare well in Europe as it develops into the next millennium."

They prepare weekly for the big decisions of 1999 and work is being done in Finance on EMU, in Agriculture on CAP.

Is the Government comfortable with its decision to join EMU from the start, irrespective of the British position? "I believe we are doing the right thing. We are as comfortable as one can be in a situation where there are some uncertainties."

The uncertainties will only recede, he believes, when the new British government makes its position clear.

THE Tanaiste sees it as being "both practical and possible" for Ireland to retain its military neutrality within the confines of the Maastricht agreement.

"The development of the Petersberg tasks, within the Intergovernmental Conference, is an acknowledgment from our European partners of the neutrality of ourselves, Austria, Finland and Sweden.

"We have got to be very careful that we don't allow ourselves to be apologising for our military neutrality. It is actually a positive element in our foreign policy. We are well respected in the international community in respect of peacekeeping. I see that as the most important pressing role in terms of Ireland's foreign policy."

On the proposed membership of the NATO led Partnership for Peace, Mr Spring believes if we are not participating in what are not military alliances, if our Defence Forces personnel do not have access to what is happening at a European or international level, then we are not going to have a contribution to make.

"If we want to play an important role, as we are doing in south Lebanon at the present time, as we probably will be doing in Yugoslavia, we have got to stay up to speed with what is happening on all fronts."

Asked to define what change in Ireland's military neutrality would warrant a referendum, he says: "The very clear change would be if we were to join a military alliance. That is not proposed. The Programme for Government is very explicit, as the last one was.

"We are not joining WEU. We are not joining NATO. I have to say that Europe is an awful long way from developing a common defence. It certainly is not going to arise in the medium term, if we are talking about the next 10 years".

In the wake of last week's elections in Northern Ireland, Mr Spring thinks the big test comes back to John Hume and David Trimble and the Government will be looking for early indications that they are of the mindset to do business.

This judgment he offers emphatically "irrespective of whether there is a ceasefire".

"We can't be held up to ransom, Mr Spring adds. "Til the cows come home, I will repeat that we want the process to be totally inclusive. In a funny way, that may well come if the indications are that the main leaders are serious and want to do business.

Sinn Fein now has a new mandate. In view of that we will all be watching their efforts to convince their friends in the IRA that that mandate should be used to create the conditions for fruitful dialogue and a restoration of the ceasefire."

Knowing the Ulster Unionist leader, David Trimble, better than any other politician here, Dick Spring has to offer a speculative answer to the question as to whether he is a man looking for an accommodation with nationalists.

"I think we will have a far better perspective on that now after the British election. He has had a very difficult baptism in terms of taking over the party leadership. Unionism was woefully divided in its various strands. I would hope that he has both the strength and the confidence to say that business can be done now.

"I hope that it is not just naivete or high expectations on our part, but that the election has given him the mandate for leadership and negotiations," he says.

Dick Spring has met Tony Blair a number of times but he doesn't know him as well as he had known Neil Kinnock or the late John Smith. He sees no difficulty, however, in working with the leader of Labour's sister party.

ON the "terrible problem" in Britain on the whole question of Europe, he credits John Major with a great interest in the subject.

"He was absolutely hamstrung because of the divisions within the party. The Labour Party seem to have a unified, solid front which is the opposite to where they were in the 1980s."

He stresses the importance from Europe's point of view of having a strong participating Britain. "Otherwise, the French/German axis becomes overly domineering. We need a strong British influence and I hope that Tony Blair will give that."

Finally, the Tanaiste believes that Mrs Robinson's candidature for the post of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights is being taken very seriously. There is enormous respect for her in the world community. It will come down, ultimately, to the personal choice of the UN Secretary General which has to be accepted by the General Assembly.

"The President is going to see the Secretary General on May 23rd," he concludes, "and that will probably be a crucial meeting."