THE TAOISEACH and the British Prime Minister did not have their traditional bilateral meeting at the European Council due to pressure of work, according to Mr Bruton.
He said there was no significance in the fact that the traditional meeting did not take place. He had met Mr Major last week, he said, and there had not been a meeting at the summit because the programme was so full.
At his final press conference, Mr Major said that it was Sinn Fein and the IRA that were keeping Sinn Fein out of inclusive political talks, not the British government. "Everybody wishes to see a cease-fire, they wish to see a genuine ceasefire, they wish to see a cease-fire that will last.
"If Sinn Fein will deliver a genuine ceasefire that will last and enable us and the other participants in the talks to be confident that it will last, then the door to Sinn Fein entering the constitutional talks is open. The only people closing the door in Sinn Fein's face are Sian Fein and the IRA themselves. I would welcome inclusive talks but there cannot be inclusive talks with Semtex and a gun hidden under the table. Nobody is going to accept that. Once that fear is removed the talks are open for them."
Mr Major rejected a suggestion that he was not currently engaged with the issue of Northern Ireland and had "his eye off the ball" because of the difficult voting situations at Westminster.
"I find that extraordinary," he said. "I have been pretty intensively engaged in the Northern Ireland issue for the last five years and I am not going to become disattached from it.
"We could scarcely be more engaged and I don't think any British government has been as engaged and working as closely with the other constitutional parties and the Irish Government as the British government has in recent years, and that remains the circumstance."