ON FEBRUARY 28th, the British and Irish governments issued a communique setting out their proposals for inter party talks. It said that the opening session of the talks would deal with first a "total and absolute commitment" to the principles of democracy and non violence contained in the Mitchell report, secondly the agreement of an agenda and thirdly dealing with (procedural matters.

The talks process is not the exclusive procession of the governments. It will include 10 additional parties.

The process depends upon agreement. So in the opening session we will be trying to secure the agreement of all 12 parties to Mitchell, to the agenda, and to the procedures.

The talks will begin in less than two weeks, yet the two governments are at loggerheads on the first matter and there has been no significant discussion with the parties in Northern Ireland on agenda and procedures.

Of course, the absence of discussion is no surprise. It is the usual pattern of Anglo Irish diplomacy. While the two governments have at best been in only desultory contact with the parties, they appear to have been in intensive contact with each other.

No doubt on or perhaps just before June 10th they will produce some scheme or form of words which they may claim will resolve the dispute between them on the Mitchell report.

Similarly, a detailed agenda will appear. They will then expect the 10 parties from Northern. Ireland to meekly accept the decision of the two governments. This is what they attempted to do with their so called ground rules on procedure. The idea seems to be to set out in advance a tight framework so that the talks proceed along the fixed lines to a pre-ordained conclusion.

Confirmation of this attitude of mind came in a briefing given by an Irish Government official to a Sunday newspaper that the Irish Government wants an external arbitrator appointed who would resolve disagreements in the talks and be able to expel parties from the talks if they did not toe the line.

A moment's consideration must bring it home to the little Hitlets in (the Department of Foreign Affairs and their accomplices in Stormont Castle that that attitude will produce failure. There will be no agreement to such procedures.

The Irish Government must realise that they must also talk and negotiate. They cannot dictate to the other parties. They must be prepared to talk, to listen, and to engage in the give and take of negotiation.

This, of course, is precisely what they failed to do when I and other Ulster Unionists came to Dublin in the 1992 inter party talks. Then the inability of the Irish Government to respond to our actions and proposals was painfully obvious.

Our position on the preliminary matters to be considered in the opening session of the talks is clear. On the decommissioning of paramilitary weapons the best course was and remains that such groups should establish their good faith on these matters before talks.

However, we accepted the Mitchell compromise of clear commitments at the outset with actual decommissioning occurring along side talks. We will require commitments on this to be given immediately and honoured within a short period after June 10th. Parties that fail to honour such commitments will, of course, exclude themselves from the process.

With regard to procedures there is much to be done. I know that the Irish Government seem to regard the ground rules paper as something set in stone. Maybe Stormont Castle has encouraged that belief.

But Northern Ireland Ministers say to us that that paper is merely their current estimate of how things will proceed. It can be no other. Procedures and agenda are inter linked. Until there is broad agreement on agenda the procedures cannot be finally settled.

With regard to agenda we have our views. We regard the concept of three separate negotiations on three separate strands, with nothing agreed until everything is agreed, as a recipe for failure. So it was in 1992. This time we should try to learn from the mistakes of the past.

We want a single negotiation in dealing with a single agenda that (would cover all relevant issues, one which would assess the so called strands, with the appropriate participation for each agenda item. The Irish Government would not participate on items relating to Northern Ireland's internal affairs. This is a more coherent approach, particularly as the so called strands overlap.

At my meeting with the leaders of the Coalition Government in Dublin on March 11th, I outlined these ideas. They appeared to be receptive yet within a week they issued a ground rules paper which tried to exclude our approach. That paper was then amended to bring it a little nearer our concept. Obviously we will seek to move it further.

Our approach does make sense, particularly with regard to Strands 2 and 3. A key objective for unionists is an alternative to and a replacement for the Anglo Irish Agreement.

I cannot conceive of an acceptable outcome which does not in valve the ending of the present one sided undemocratic structures. Unionists have long said that the replacement should be a genuine British Irish agreement that addressed the totality of relationships within the British Isles.

Those relationships operate both North/South within the island of Ireland and east/west between both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and Great Britain. For both Northern Ireland and the Republic the east/west axis is in fact more important than the North South axis. Both raise similar issues and economic, social and cultural interaction. To separate them and to treat them independently does not make sense yet that is what the ground rules would do.

Again this is a matter we outlined 16 the Irish Government during our meeting on March 11th. We also have raised the matter with our government. To date there has been no adequate response.

Both governments seem petrified, stuck in old failed procedures and incapable of adjusting to new ideas and new procedures.

EVEN WORSE, those "rules" seek to exclude us from negotiation on the more important issues namely, east/west relations and the replacement of the Diktat. Not only is this exclusion unacceptable to us it contradicts the assurances in the inter governmental communique of February 28th. That says the parties must have reassurance that a meaningful and inclusive process of negotiations is genuinely being offered to address the legitimate concerns of their traditions and the need for new political arrangements with which all can identify.

This passage was designed to appeal to republicans but it applies to all. At present, ground rules purport to exclude us from negotiations on a crucial issue. The Diktat has no place whatsoever in any new arrangements. The Department of Foreign Affairs must reconcile itself to losing the illegitimate power to stretch its fingers into the nooks and crannies of Northern Ireland which the careless and deluded Thatcher government conceded.

I am writing on Tuesday morning. Perhaps when this is read the two governments will have produced a form of words to paper over the apparent refusal of the Irish Government to agree to the implementation of all of the Mitchell report.

Yet that issue is only the first of a series of difficult issues. Of those on which the Government of the Republic of Ireland have an input to make, that Government must realise that it cannot dictate it must be prepared to negotiate.

So far as it has shown little sign of a willingness to treat the Northern Ireland parties as equally legitimate parties in that process or to come to terms with the reality of Northern Ireland and the wishes of its people. On and after June 10th these attitudes must and will change.