THE Taoiseach has repeated assurances to Sinn Fein that decommissioning of weapons will not be allowed to create a "log jam" at the all party talks, due to begin on June 10th.
During a press conference in Dublin yesterday, Mr Bruton replied in considerable detail to remarks by the Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, at the party's weekend ardfheis and also commented on what he termed "a bizarre speech" by the Ulster Unionist leader, Mr David Trimble.
Mr Trimble had called for travel restrictions between Ireland and Britain and said the Irish Government must realise it could no longer export bombs along with its social problems to Britain.
Telling Mr Trimble that he would better advance the interests of his own people if he spoke with "more balance and less bile", Mr Bruton said the largest beneficiaries of peace would be the very people he represented.
Asked if he understood decommissioning of arms would be expected to be carried our parallel to talks, Mr Bruton said, "we are looking for the issue to be dealt with in a serious way". The Mitchell report said this was one way in which the matter could be advanced.
"Obviously, when we get to the talks on June 10th, those who have other ideas will be free to put their ideas forward. The important thing is to give reassurances all round, reassurances to Sinn Fein that the agenda is not going to be log jammed on one issue; reassurance to those who don't have arms that their concerns will also be met," he added.
Turning to the Sinn Fein president's speech, the Taoiseach said Mr Adams had made a number of "positive statements" including the call for a democratic and negotiated settlement. Mr Adams's assertion that unionists felt be sieged by Irish nationalists was "a fair and courageous statement for him to make". If he understood this, surely he had to appreciate that the creation of any strategy excluding unionists would drive them to seek allies elsewhere. However, this did not mean acceptance of a unionist veto.
Responding to Sinn Fein's claim that the Taoiseach should represent the interests of the Irish nation extending beyond the State he governed, Mr Bruton said that was "exactly what I seek to do". His strategy worked more comprehensively than that of the republican movement in the past two months or in 25 years of violence.
"If the republican movement itself wants to "represent the interests of the Irish nation", the IRA should restore its ceasefire, Mr Bruton said. If, as Mr Adams said, the immediate tasks were democratic and the problem was not a military one, why had the IRA resumed military operations, the Taoiseach asked.
Asking the Sinn Fein leader to address "in a real and open way the fears that existed as a result of the republican movement's conspiratorial past", he said Mr Adams must understand the natural reticence on the part of constitutional parties in entering an agreement with his movement.
That reluctance would persist unless the constitutional parties were first satisfied that all involved had the same understanding of what the word "democratic" really meant.
He understood democracy to exclude the use of force to achieve political ends, "unless that force is democratically and constitutionally sanctioned". Neither the existence nor the activities of the IRA had ever been sanctioned democratically in Ireland, Mr Bruton added.
Mr Bruton denied that the June talks would take place in a "partitionist" framework and he insisted that their outcome had to have an all Ireland dimension.