Setback could lead to better assessment of concerns - Bruton

Mr John Bruton has suggested that the current difficulties in the peace process could in the long run strengthen the Belfast Agreement by giving everybody "a new and better understanding of the constraints and concerns of both unionists and republicans".

The Fine Gael leader said yesterday's setback was not the first in the process and "probably will not be the last". The need now was to "accentuate the positive, avoid recrimination, and emphasise private discussion with adversaries rather than public comment on their deficiencies".

He called for a phase of intense discussion, "based on a positive inventory of what has been achieved so far". "I believe an executive and North-South bodies can be set up within quite a short period if this approach is adopted. I believe all the leading participants have been sincere in their efforts. All have tried to move their constituencies. All realise that no significant party can be excluded," he said.

The Labour leader, Mr Ruairi Quinn, said the main reaction to yesterday's events would be one of "great sadness and disappointment". Earlier this week he had urged a unionist delegation to accept the governments' Way Forward document. "I regret that they did not find it possible to do so. It may be that for the sake of a short period of time, even as little as a few weeks, unionism has let slip a historic opportunity."

Mr Quinn said it was his opinion that the leadership of both Sinn Fein and the UUP remained committed to the agreement.

Republican Sinn Fein said it felt "vindicated" by the events at Stormont, which had "dealt a major blow to the current attempt to reinforce British rule in Ireland through updating it and broadening its base".

The party's president, Mr Ruairi O Bradaigh, said the Belfast Agreement had been yet another "artificial means to govern an artificial area under British rule" and would inevitably fail, because it did not address "the basic cause of conflict - the presence of the British government in Ireland".

Unionist demands for concessions were "as always, proving insatiable", he added, and the result had been "the farce of the Stormont First Minister and all his party absenting themselves, the resignation of the deputy first minister and the charade of Provo and SDLP ministers being appointed only to be immediately disqualified."