THE Fianna Fail leader, Mr Bertie Ahern, has accused the British Prime Minister, Mr John Major, of dishonouring a "repeated commitment" to involve Sinn Fein in all party talks should IRA violence cease.
Mr Ahern, in a highly critical speech in Belfast yesterday, said the deadlock arising from the decommissioning issue had been disastrously mishandled and misjudged by the British government.
The British had put an intolerable strain oil the peace process, he told the Current Affairs Society of Methodist College. When the IRA declared its ceasefire, the British "upped the ante" by demanding decommissioning of IRA weapons said Mr Ahern.
"If the British government was going to insist on the early surrender of weapons as a precondition for participation in talks, they should have said so loudly clearly and repeatedly before the ceasefire, something they completely failed to do, particularly when asked what a renunciation of violence would involve in the clarification they provided to Sinn Fein.
"Of course, in those circumstances as they well knew at the time, if they had insisted on an early arms surrender, the cease fire would, in all probability, not have happened and, understandably, they did not want to be blamed for that.
Afterwards, having an unconditional commitment to peace in their pocket, they upped the ante and put different roadblocks in the way of progress.
Mr Ahern found it difficult to believe that the IRA would break its "unequivocal" ceasefire commitment given at the end of August, 1994. "Republicans should not abandon their commitments just because the British Prime Minister has so far failed to honour his repeated commitment that if violence were to end for good, Sinn Fein could enter all party dialogue."
The Fianna Fail leader said he had little time for the republican sophistry which would not condone but refused to condemn recent murders of real or alleged drug dealers. As far as Fianna Fail was concerned, the IRA ceasefire statement was a definitive commitment that all paramilitary killings of whatever nature or for whatever purpose, would cease.
What was more important than condemnation however was that the killings should stop. "The whole situation underlines the urgency of a serious and comprehensive reform of policing preferably within the wider context of a political agreement."
Mr Ahern said he would like more proof that the IRA was responsible for recent killings. If it was responsible, then such killings were a breach of the ceasefire.
"Breaches are not the same thing, of course, as a complete breakdown of the ceasefire and should not be treated as such. The peace is far too valuable to be lightly written off. Dialogue in this difficult situation remains absolutely essential. But at the same time we should not be afraid to confront realities and call them by their proper name."
Mr. Ahern appealed to the unionist parties to approach the situation constructively and to proceed on the basis of the forth coming Mitchell report on decommissioning. He did not see an elected assembly, as proposed by the Ulster Unionist Party leader, Mr David Trimble, as a satisfactory substitute for all party talks.
