THOSE who advocate elections in Northern Ireland before all party talks would have to demonstrate why they would do more good than harm at this juncture, the Tanaiste said at the weekend.
Addressing a seminar on reconciliation in Bandon, Co Cork, Mr Spring said there were fundamental differences between the concept of negotiation and the concept of elections. Elections were designed to produce winners and losers, while negotiations were conducted on the basis of trying to reach consensus.
Elections, by definition, excluded those who failed to win successful negotiations included everyone with a contribution to make to a solution.
The Government's view, Mr Spring said, was that if a genuine consensus emerged from negotiations between the two communities, an elected body in Northern Ireland could, in those circumstances, allow for direct and responsive local control over many areas of government. Such an elected body, as part of a comprehensive accommodation, was a concept the Government never had any difficulty in endorsing.
He continued "There is a strong worry now in the nationalist community in Northern Ireland, fuelled by previous experience, that the idea of elections is being put forward with a view to creating a further hurdle to negotiations rather than with a view to opening the door to them. That sense arises in part from the way in which what they see as the last hurdle the decommissioning issue was dealt with.
The Government, Mr Spring added, had made known its disappointment at the British response to the Mitchell Report, which bad broken down the problem of decommissioning in a lucid, authoritative and even handed way.
Both sides would now refocus attention on the report and it had been agreed they would use the political track to do so at Thursday's meeting of the Anglo Irish Conference. Both governments would also use that forum to discuss the agreed aim of launching all party talks by the end of this month.
There was an old expression, Mr Spring said, if you are in a hole you should stop digging. "The best thing we could do for each other now is for each of us to lay down our shovels," he added, saying it was time to explore the issues dividing the parties on an exploratory, multinational basis.
They included how best to use the Mitchell report to build confidence leading to negotiations on a level playing field how to reach all party negotiations for a lasting settlement, and how to find a paths down which all sides could go together.
The SDLP MP for West Belfast, Dr Joe Hendron, said his party was opposed to elections because, before the cessation of violence, the paramilitary organisations had been promised there would be all party talks if the guns fell silent.
Mr Willie Ross MP of the UUP said nobody in the real world believed there could be all party talks by the end of the month. The Downing Street communique, which included the end of February, deadline, was little more than a pious aspiration, despite the fact that it had been signed, by the heads of two sovereign governments.
Mr Bruton and Mr Major would have known this had they consulted properly with the parties who would take part in such talks, he added. On Mr Spring's objection to elections, he said the Tanaiste's party was a minority partner in the Government and it could be elections did not suit him.
Asked about the promise to the paramilitaries of all party talks, Mr Ross replied "We didn't a promise them anything. The only promise you can make in a democracy is the right to fight elections. Mr Spring is very far wrong. In Northern Ireland, we don't know who is speaking for whom at present. The only way to find out is through elections.
"If as Mr Spring, claims, elections could be divisive, then why doesn't he do away with elections in the Irish Republic?"
Even if elections delayed all party talks, that was not necessarily a bad thing, Mr Ross added, because it would give people time to think and reflect.
Munster MEP Mr John Cushnahan (FG) said even if elections were divisive, they would identify the mandated representatives of all parties. It was not unreasonable, he added, that a gesture on decommissioning should be made before all party talks.
Mr Ray Burke TD, Fianna Fail spokesman on foreign affairs, said his party felt it was a grave discourtesy to Senator Mitchell and to the Clinton administration not to allow the report space for consideration before Britain went off on a completely different course.