THE Tanaiste, Mr Spring, has rejected claims by the deputy leader of the Ulster Unionists, Mr John Taylor, that he offended many people in Northern Ireland by his cool attitude to election proposals.
Mr Taylor stated that the Tanaiste was "the most detested politician in Northern Ireland" and a mouthpiece for Sinn Fein But his comments drew a strong response from the Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrat leaders yesterday. A Government spokesman declined to comment on the remarks.
The Tanaiste said that Mr Taylor's accusations did not reflect his record and performance over the years. Neither were they in accordance with the reaction he had received from unionists in the North, he said.
"Maybe John Taylor should go and talk to some of his own people," Mr Spring suggested.
Both Mr Bertie Ahern and Ms Mary Harney expressed strong criticism of the attitude of unionists. In an address to last night's Fianna Fail selection convention in Dublin South Central, Mr Ahern said Mr Taylor's attack would "cut no ice in Dublin".
He also attacked the British government's attitude, claiming it and the unionists were effectively stalling the peace process.
However, he insisted there was a duty to examine objectively alternative ideas for moving forward, including an electoral process or an elected body or assembly. This did not involve talking about an internal Northern Ireland matter but how the next stage of the peace process should be handled.
"I now firmly believe that, even if by some extraordinary turnaround which will not happen, the IRA did comply with the Washington 3 precondition in the morning, the two unionist parties would in all probability still refuse to come straight to the negotiating table and the British government would claim that they could not insist that they should," Mr Ahern added.
While it would have been helpful if Sinn Fein had been part of a full political consensus at the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation on Friday, nobody should operate under the "illusion" that it would have made much practical difference to unionist resistance to peace negotiations he said.
"The pretence that this has nothing whatever to do with the parliamentary arithmetic at Westminster strains credulity to the limit," Mr Ahern added.
The unionist parties had not made it clear that they were ready to hold elections for the sole purpose of seeking a mandate to enter all party negotiations immediately, convened by both governments on a three strand basis and without further preconditions, he said.
"I am more and more inclined to suspect that neither the British government nor the unionist parties are overly concerned as to whether the elected body idea is accepted by nationalists or not. The important thing for them seems to be that progress to all party peace negotiations will once again be bogged down and stalled for months on end. A new plausible excuse for inertia will have been found," Mr Ahern added.
Ms Harney said she regretted unionist reluctance to engage in meaningful dialogue with a view to advancing the peace process.
They were displaying a worrying inability to come to terms with the underlying problems of Northern Ireland.
Rather than concentrating on finding a solution to the present impasse, unionist spokesmen were "throwing mischievous spanners into the works by questioning the role of the Irish Government in the peace process," she added.
Mr Taylor's remarks contained an implicit assertion that the government had no role in the internal affairs of Northern Ireland position "tantamount reversing the current quest for lasting political settlement".
The Anglo Irish Agreement had effectively accorded the Government a role as "guarantor of the nationalist minority in Northern Ireland" in much the same way as the British government had acted as guarantor to the unionist position, she said.
"Mr Taylor and his unionist colleagues must recognise and accept that Northern nationalists, are entitled, as of right, to full parity of esteem within Northern Ireland. The Stormont regime failed to recognise these facts and the ensuing alienation of much of the nationalist community was a major contributor to the past 25 years of violence," Ms Harney added.