SINN Fein has accused the Taoiseach of ineptitude, which it said had helped wreck efforts towards peace in the North.
"It has to be said that at critical junctures Mr Bruton made serious mistakes and misjudgments which contributed to the breakdown of the peace process, the Sinn Fein chairman, Mr Mitchel McLaughlin, said yesterday in Co Cork.
In scathing terms, Mr McLaughlin said Britain's refusal to bring his party into talks during a 17 month truce caused the ceasefire's collapse in February.
He cited Mr Bruton's refusal to meet the Sinn Fein leader, Mr Gerry Adams, and the SDLP leader, Mr John Hume, to discuss a peace process impasse last October and his support for IRA arms decommissioning, which Sinn Fein said bogged down the process for months, as examples of his mistakes.
He attacked Mr Bruton's "failure to represent or even to comprehend the plight of small nationalist communities" during a tense marching season.
Mr McLaughlin's comments, some of the harshest by Sinn Fein about the Taoiseach, followed Mr Bruton's criticism of the republican movement after the death of a British soldier in Belfast two weeks ago. Mr McLaughlin said he was replying as national chairman of Sinn Fein to "political and personal insults" which Mr Bruton had directed at his party's leadership over the past 10 days.
"The Taoiseach's willingness to retreat into the old and failed agenda of vilification can only raise further questions about the depth of his commitment to this (peace) project since he came to office", he said.