NEXT week's resumed multi-party talks and the marching season will be high on the agenda when the Tanaiste, Mr Spring, and the Northern Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam, meet in Dublin tomorrow.
With Sinn Fein due to hold its second meeting with British government officials today Mr Spring and Dr Mowlam will also be reviewing progress in the separate discussions involving Sinn Fein and senior British and Irish civil servants.
It is expected that Sinn Fein's chief negotiator, Mr Martin McGuinness, will again lead the party's delegation at the talks at Stormont. Tomorrow Dr Mowlam and Mr Spring will be examining whether the talks are laying the groundwork for a resumed IRA ceasefire.
The main focus of tomorrow's meeting will be on the multi-party talks resuming at Stormont on Tuesday. Mr Spring, despite the pressures of the impending general election, is planning to attend the negotiations which are being reconvened under the former US senator, Mr George Mitchell.
Mr Spring and Dr Mowlam will be meeting for the second time since the British election.
Meanwhile, the Fianna Fail leader, Mr Bertie Ahern, said yesterday that the talks must not become bogged down again over procedural matters and the issue of decommissioning. Mr Ahern also criticised the Dublin Government for its "furtive" handling of talks with Sinn Fein.
"The talks with British officials are taking place openly at Stormont; those with Irish ones are taking place furtively at an undisclosed location," he wrote in yesterday's Irish News. Mr Ahern also wrote that the results of the two recent elections in Northern Ireland, notwithstanding Sinn Fein's successes, were a vote for peace.
He welcomed the fact that the new British government appeared determined to be "bold and pro-active, however cautious it may have been in opposition."
On next Tuesday's talks, Mr Ahern said there needed to be "clarity about how the ground rules will operate, and clear assurances that there will be no repetition of the experience after the first IRA ceasefire and that both governments are committed to real substantive negotiations".
