THE Government is still awaiting confirmation from the Northern Secretary, Sir Patrick Mayhew, that a full Anglo Irish Inter Governmental Conference meeting will be held this week, possibly on Thursday.
The demand for such a meeting was conveyed by the Tanaiste, Mr Spring, to Mr Mayhew's office on Friday. But Mr Mayhew was resisting the request in a telephone conversation with Mr Spring on Saturday, on the grounds that a meeting at this time would upset some Conservative MPs.
The meeting was sought by Mr Spring to raise two particular issues: how the principle of parity of esteem, advocated by both governments, is evident from the events at Garvaghy Road last Thursday, and why the Government was given no advance notice of the change in the RUC's decision about the march.
British sources last night were "guiding" against the likelihood of any such meeting this week, despite the Tanaiste's insistence that it was necessary in the light of the widespread violence which preceded and followed the Drumcree march.
Notwithstanding British resistance, Government sources are adamant that the meeting will go ahead, since Article 3 of the Anglo Irish Agreement, which established the Anglo Irish Conference, provides that "special meetings shall be convened at the request of either side".
Both the Taoiseach and the Tanaiste stressed the need to reestablish the primacy of politics in their public utterances over the weekend. They both asserted that, despite the difficulties resulting from the Orange march on the Garvaghy Road, there was no alternative to dialogue.
Meanwhile, Mr Spring is rescheduling his programme as president of the Council of Minister for the Irish European Union Presidency this week, to enable him to attend the multi party talks in Belfast tomorrow. He left Dublin yesterday afternoon for two days of meetings in Brussels, before addressing the European Parliament on Wednesday.
He has now decided to cut short his Brussels commitments to lead the Government's team at Tuesday's talks in Belfast. At tomorrow's talks he will be raising recent developments with Senator George Mitchell, Mr Harry Holkieri and Gen John de Chastelain.
Mr Mayhew will make a statement about the crisis in the North in the House of Commons this afternoon. He is likely to come under Labour and SDLP fire for his continued refusal to acquiesce to an emergency meeting of the Anglo Irish Conference this week.
Dr Mo Mowlam, shadow Northern Ireland secretary, endorsed the Tanaiste's call yesterday. But it was being made clear that Sir Patrick favours holding discussions with Mr Spring in the margins" of the inter party talks at Stormont.
One official said there would be expectations of immediate results at a conference meeting and that greater progress was likely away from such public scrutiny.
Mr John Hume, the SDLP leader, has asked for an early meeting with the British prime minister. He is expected to meet the Taoiseach and other Ministers in Dublin this week. It is understood that arrangements are also being made for a meeting between Government officials and Sinn Fein this week.
The Taoiseach, Mr Bruton, said yesterday that the bombing, in Enniskillen, and the organised rioting elsewhere, were wrong from every point of view - moral and political. Restraint, not this foolish and frightening violence, would have been the most powerful argument against the intimidatory tactics used at Drumcree.
He condemned the bombing and the organised rioting. "The fact that the warning of the bomb in Enniskillen was so short shows that the bombers could not care less how many people were killed," he said
Also condemning the bomb, the leader of the Progressive Democrats, Ms Mary Harney, said that politicians, North and South, should do all in their power to pull Northern Ireland back from the brink of a return to full scale violence.