THE Fianna Fail leader Mr Bertie Ahern, has said the "present negative British attitude" to the Hume proposals was "completely unacceptable to the Irish people".
In a statement issued late last night, Mr Ahern said that "in the present window of opportunity, everyone should be doing everything possible to see that peace is restored".
The statement continued: "The British government, who have been prepared to talk to Sinn Fein themselves after a ceasefire, have no right to disenfranchise 40 per cent of the nationalist population in respect of their participation in talks, or deny Sinn Fein's full democratic rights as a party, once it is prepared to make an irrevocable commitment to peace and democracy by signing up to the Mitchell principles on behalf of the republican movement, as soon as it is able to enter talks.
"Unionists have no right to be given by any government a political veto over the presence in talks of those who have been freely chosen by a substantial section of the nationalist population to represent them.
"The Irish Government must now give clear and vigorous public leadership and rebuild an exclusively democratic nationalist consensus for peace.
"That was the basis of the 1994 ceasefire and it provided the political alternative to violence. The long hard battle for democracy in Ireland must be fought by exclusively democratic means and I appeal for no more acts of violence that would sabotage or prejudice that battle."