THE planting of a second bomb in London yesterday has been denounced by the Government as "another attempt to use terror to put public pressure on people to do what they would otherwise not do".
Scotland Yard said the device "bore all the hallmarks of the Provisional IRA" and criticised the imprecise locations given by the bombers in two coded warnings. Scotland Yard refused to confirm that the device contained a pound of Semtex explosive.
Meanwhile a spokesperson for the IRA in an interview yesterday in the Sinn Fein paper, An Phoblacht, has hinted that more attacks may follow.
Because of the warnings about yesterday's bomb, the Government sees it as intending disruption rather than loss of life or damage to property.
A Government statement said "this last planting of a device in London was designed to frighten people. We utterly condemn it".
Government officials are expected to meet senior Sinn Fein members today to urge the restoration of the IRA ceasefire. The Taoiseach, Mr Bruton, has told the Dail that the Government "will not pursue a policy to appease or provoke the IRA. The IRA will unfortunately work to its own agenda".
The Sinn Fein vice president, Mr Pat Doherty, said they, will be "anxious to hear the Dublin Government's proposals for rebuilding the peace process".
The Taoiseach, when winding up the three day debate in the Dail on Northern Ireland, said "we will go on talking to Sinn Fein but go on being suspicious of the IRA".
Mr Bruton also raised questions about the difficult position of Sinn Fein following the ending of the ceasefire. If there were to be a new ceasefire and all party talks, "would the IRA resume violence whenever the talks reached a difficult point from a republican point of view, and is there anything Sinn Fein can say to convince people that this assumption would be wrong?"
The Taoiseach admitted that the task facing the two governments was "immensely complex".
He listed areas where both governments would have to work to prepare for the summit later this month. These included finding a way for Sinn Fein to rejoin the political process the proximity talks proposal how an elective process could follow from these talks and lead speedily to all party talks John Hume's proposal for referendums North and South, and how the US administration could play an active role.
The former Taoiseach, Mr Albert Reynolds, told the Dail that "it was with the Irish government I led, not the British government, that the Provisional IRA made a peace accord".
The record would show that "we fulfilled, to the best of our ability, the obligations of the Irish government to the nationalist and republican communities in the North".
The Anglo Irish liaison group of Irish and British officials met in London yesterday to prepare for the summit later this month. Last night, as Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, sharply criticised the British and the Irish governments, he offered to work with them to try to rebuild the peace process if an unambiguous commitment to early all party talks is provided.
Mr Adams said he was willing to try to answer the Government's question as to how the IRA cessation could be put together again, but could not speak authoritatively for the IRA.
He revealed that he had sent a letter to Mr John Major yesterday underlining Sinn Fein's commitment to rebuilding the peace process and urging him to commence the all party negotiations which were vital to restore confidence.
Earlier yesterday, the North's Minister for Political Development, Mr Michael Ancram, indicated that elections could be held even if the IRA ceasefire is not reinstated, but refused to comment on whether Sinn Fein might be excluded from such elections.
Mr Ancram said his government still held that an elective process offered the best chance of getting into all party negotiations.
Speaking to a large audience in west Belfast last night, Mr Adams took up Mr Ancram's remarks and accused the British government of wanting to try to exclude Sinn Fein from both the talks that were envisaged and from the proposed election process.
He warned Dublin against accepting the election proposal and said the onus to provide leadership fell more and more heavily upon the Irish Government.
The Sinn Fein president accused the Taoiseach of seeking to hold him and Sinn Fein accountable for the London bombing last Friday. He said Mr Bruton had not shown any understanding of the difficulties "which British bad faith has created for all of us".
Mr Adams said he would lead the Sinn Fein delegation which is to meet shortly with Irish government officials. He also said that, while he was prepared to speak to the IRA, he would not speak for them.
"Getting the IRA to recommence a cessation is possible only, in my opinion, in the context of rebuilding the wider peace process", he said.
Councillor Gary McMichael of the Ulster Democratic Party warned that republicans could not bomb their way to the negotiating table.
Speaking in Co Down after the device in London had been defused, Mr McMichael said the evidence was clear that there was no support for a return to violence. He said that loyalists should resist retaliation and he pointed out that the IRA needed a loyalist resumption of violence to sustain its campaign.
In Washington yesterday, US Commerce Secretary Mr Ron Brown said the administration is go ahead with investment and commercial initiatives in Northern Ireland and the Border counties despite the end of the IRA ceasefire.