THE Taoiseach expressed confidence that agreement would be reached shortly on the outstanding procedural issues in the multiparty talks on the North.

There had, said Mr Bruton, been some recent encouraging developments, "and while I am inhibited by the confidentiality of the proceedings from giving details, I can say that we are working towards a situation where it might be possible to reach agreement before the holidays on many of the outstanding procedural issues and to pave the way for negotiations on the substantive issues after a short summer recess."

Opening a series of statements on the North, Mr Bruton said that there was frustration at the pace of progress in the negotiations.

"After 40 days, formal agreement has not yet been reached on the rules of procedure or on the agenda. This must at the same time be placed in the context of 25 years of violence and hundreds of years of division, supremacism, misunderstanding and fear", he added.

"Procedural arguments, which can appear superficial to outsiders, can provide a means through which the participants acquire a sense of ownership of the process, thereby facilitating eventual agreements on issues of substance."

Mr Bruton said the parades arrangements clearly needed to be revised to accommodate the issue of the likelihood of long term damage to community relations.

It might be profitable, he added, to study South African legislation which took into account factors such as preventing "the causing, encouraging or fermenting of feelings of hostility between different population groups or parts of population groups".

He and the Tanaiste would continue to monitor the parade situation closely, and the Government was in discussion with the British authorities about possible upcoming flashpoints. They must not shave a repetition of Garvaghy Road.

"But no action or inaction on the part of the British government relating to Portadown justified the murder, the intimidation, the destruction of property and the general mayhem which followed it, right across Northern Ireland", said Mr Bruton.

"Democracy fundamentally depends upon the principle that "people are free to argue against, disagree with and criticise the decisions of lawful authority. They are not free to disobey such decisions."

Mr Bruton described as "courageous" the recent Presbyterian Church statement urging that the properly constituted authorities of the State be obeyed.

"I would go further. There has not been, nor is there now, any justification for the use of violence to achieve political objectives. This is particularly so when there are negotiations taking place for which the only entry qualifications is that participating parties reject violence, or any support for violence."