THE IRA indicated yesterday there is little prospect of it renewing its ceasefire in the near future, and the INLA announced the ending of its 20 month de facto suspension of violence.
Last night, the Tanaiste, Mr Spring, described the INLA action as "an act of madness at this time when we're trying to put the peace process together and make progress".
The INLA said it would operate from a "position of defence and retaliation". Sources said the organisation could use a house raid, an arrest, or alleged harassment of nationalists by the British army or the RUC as a reason to launch a gun or bomb attack.
"It will be a very loose interpretation of the word `defence'," said one source. "If we believe that working class nationalists bare coming under any threat from the state or loyalists, we will hit back.
Both Mr Spring, who was campaigning in Donegal yesterday, and the SDLP deputy leader, Mr Seamus Mallon, appealed to the INLA to rethink its decision.
Commenting on prospects for Sinn Fein participation in all party negotiations, Mr Spring said the Government's position was clear. "We've emphasised very clearly we want them at the all party talks and we would hope that the cessation would be restored. The process is there, the road map to the 10th of June, and it's time for people to get into that process."
Mr Mallon said it was a "difficult, complex and dangerous" time, but "restraint and perseverance were needed to reach a political settlement.
The IRA has yet to give a formal response to the election proposals, but yesterday a senior IRA figure told BBC Radio Ulster the electoral format designed to lead to all party negotiations was unacceptable. "The proposals do not contain the dynamic necessary to carry all parties forward into meaningful peace negotiations free from preconditions," the IRA source said.
The IRA's stance was hardly surprising considering the emphatic manner in which Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, and other senior party figures had dismissed the election proposals when they were published on Thursday. They were "anathema to nationalists", said Mr Adams. The proposals conformed to a unionist agenda, he added. He said however that Sinn Fein remained committed to its "peace strategy".
That position was supported by an IRA prisoner in the Maze, who in the current issue of An Phoblacht argues that "there are no military solutions".
Gerard Magee, who is serving a 20 year prison sentence for IRA activity, exhorted republicans to accept that a negotiated peace settlement was the only way forward.
The timing of the publication of the letter, on the eve of today's Sinn Fein Ardfheis, indicates the "peace strategists" within the republican movement are still in positions of influence and still prepared to fight their corner.
It comes three weeks after a similar letter from Joe O'Connell, an IRA prisoner in England, who described the ending of the ceasefire as the "most stupid, blinkered and ill conceived decision ever made by a revolutionary body". He called on those republicans who believed in the peace process to speak out and urge the restoration of the ceasefire.
Magee asked in his letter what was the alternative to a peace process. Was it to be "permanent conflict, permanent stalemate, or permanent going round in circles?
"Will this be all we can offer to a future generation? Will young people like Eddie O'Brien [from Gorey, killed by his own bomb in London] he left with no choice but to make enormous sacrifices with their lives?
"Have we not got a major responsibility to make a concerted effort to break down British intransigence at this period in our history? While some strong military tactics such as the Canary Wharf bomb may be required to move the situation forward, keeping armed struggle going is not a republican objective."
Magee concluded "There are no military solutions. A negotiated peace settlement is the only solution."