THE House strongly condemned the IRA bomb attacks in Britain.

The matter was raised by the Fianna Fail leader, Mr Bertie Ahern, who asked the Taoiseach to join with him in sending sympathy and good wishes to the community for the disruption and damage caused by the attack.

"I am sure that the Taoiseach and the rest of the House will agree with me that these criminal acts have to be repudiated in the strongest terms. They are politically futile and are only delaying any possibility of the commencement of inclusive talks."

Mr Bruton said the attack was a "truly appalling event", and represented an expression of a politically bankrupt strategy. This strategy of violence was cowardly because the people who engaged in such actions did not put themselves in the least at risk of physical harm.

They put others at risk, he added. "This cowardly strategy of sneaky violence by the IRA has completely failed. It has done nothing but divide the Irish people more deeply than they were divided when the campaign started. And it also makes political progress in dealing with genuine grievances for the nationalist community more difficult.

"I believe this attack is to be strongly condemned, and I hope it will be the last such attack that we will see, that sense will at last come to the surface within the republican movement, and that there will be a ceasefire so that there can be all inclusive talks."

The PD leader, Ms Mary Harney, said it was probably too much to expect that the IRA would leave its evil ways behind during the British general election campaign. "I think we must make it clear to Sinn Fein and the IRA that they will not bomb their way to the talks table."