THE Tanaiste has declined to endorse or reject the system of elections for Northern Ireland which the British government will announce today. Mr Spring was briefed on the proposal yesterday by Sir Patrick Mayhew.
The SDLP said it will boycott any forum or assembly that would follow from elections. Such an elected body was part of the Ulster Unionist Party's "internalist and incrementalist agenda", said the party's former chairman, Mr Mark Durkan.
The Tanaiste met the Northern Secretary at Castle Buildings, Stormont, for 2 1/2 hours, over running by more than an hour.
Sir Patrick described the encounter as a "very useful" review of progress. Mr Spring was a lot more guarded in his response.
Sir Patrick confirmed the British government will announce its election plan in the House of Commons today.
Mr Spring was not prepared to tell reporters whether the electoral model was acceptable to Dublin. "We made our views known," was all he would say.
He did not want to make a fuller comment until after the proposals were published. "Our main focus, as far as the Irish Government is concerned, is to get to June 10th and all party negotiations."
That would require the "goodwill and support" of all the parties. "That is our ambition, and I think we can still do that."
Sir Patrick said the two governments were totally committed to June 10th as the date when "all party and inclusive negotiations shall begin".
Mr Durkan last night accused the British government of effectively meeting most of the election demands of the Ulster Unionist Party.
He stopped short of saying his party would boycott elections, but said it would not be a part of any elected forum.
Reiterating the SDLP position that an election must lead directly to negotiations, rather than to an elected body, he said: "We cannot acquiesce in the plan for an elected body alongside negotiations.
"If we did go into this body to play happy families', as is being suggested, we know that the UUP would use this scenario to argue in negotiations simply for a few functions to be given to such a supposedly acceptable body."
Mr Gerry Adams said Sinn Fein was still implacably opposed to elections and a new Northern Ireland forum. The purpose of elections was to "stall, and to spin out and to obstruct progress", he said in Belfast yesterday.
He repeated Sinn Fein's demand for all party talks without preconditions.
"We need proper talks with all of the parties invited to attend, all issues on the agenda and speedy movement forward within a timeframe," he said.
The current objective must be to get the "peace process back on the rails", the Sinn Fein president added.
"The proposals which are being put at the moment, insofar as we know them, don't have that intended effect and will not have that effect," he said.
Mr Steve McBride, chairman of the Alliance Party, responded that it was not elections but the IRA's refusal to abandon violence which was preventing talks.
The Ulster Democratic Party leader, Mr Gary McMichael, has urged Sinn Fein to use its ardfheis this weekend to launch a process leading to a renewed IRA ceasefire.
In an article in the current edition of the New York based Irish Voice, he warned that loyalist paramilitary patience was running out.
"Sinn Fein must make it clear that republicans accept that the way forward is the democratic way, not a continued military campaign."
