Mayhew gets peace mandate: Government invites IRA to carry on talking as hopes rise for ceasefire

JOHN MAJOR last night kept the door open for a peace deal with the IRA after the Government revealed it had been ready to start face-to-face talks in January.

Sir Patrick Mayhew, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, moved to deflect the row over the highly embarrassing leak of government contacts with the IRA - previously denied - and put the onus on the terrorists to end the violence. He told the Commons: 'The key to peace is in the hands of the IRA.'

Sir Patrick brushed aside any immediate doubts about his future by securing a mandate from Tory backbenchers to keep up the peace process. Sir Patrick told the Commons that peace 'properly attained' was a 'prize worth risks'.

The terms of Sir Patrick's statement amounted to an invitation to the IRA to build on eight months of clandestine contacts between the two sides which are detailed in 22 hitherto top secret documents released by him yesterday. British officials drew some hope that a de facto ceasefire could be imminent because of what they called the 'dramatic decrease' in violence since the Shankhill bombing last month

A British message delivered to the IRA leadership just over three weeks ago reveals that had the IRA given a private and 'unannounced' assurance that its campaign of violence was over, the Government was ready to meet it the week after Parliament's return in January.

Despite the setback caused by the leak, Mr Major will go ahead with the planned summit on Friday with Albert Reynolds, the Taoiseach.

On a day of high tension in the Commons chamber, during which Ian Paisley, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, was ejected after calling Sir Patrick a liar, the Northern Ireland Secretary strongly defended the contacts and maintained that they were fully in line with the declared policy of admitting Sinn Fein to talks only after a permanent end to violence.

Mr Paisley said that Sir Patrick had 'rubbished' any suggestion of talks with the IRA and added on behalf of his hard- line DUP: 'When we met him with the Prime Minister he rubbished it again to us.' If Sir Patrick wanted a settlement, 'the only honourable thing he can do is resign.'

Underlining the anxieties of the official Ulster Unionists, John Taylor, MP for Strangford, said on Channel Four News that there was 'a lack of confidence that is now prevailing right across Northern Ireland'. He said government denials about contacts with the IRA had brought about 'complete distrust in the Unionist community in all levels of society' and encouraged young people to join the paramilitaries.

But in a statement cleared at an emergency morning meeting of the group of Cabinet ministers overseeing Northern Ireland policy, Sir Patrick countered by reading in full the key position paper put before the IRA on 19 March - which officials say remains policy. Although the document accepts the eventual outcome of open-ended talks could be a united Ireland, it repeats that this would be only on the 'basis of the consent of the people of Northern Ireland'.

Sir Patrick was cheered loudly from the government benches when he read: 'Unless the people of Northern Ireland come to express such a view, the British government will continue to uphold the Union.'

The documents expose a remarkably candid exchange between the two sides on the circumstances in which the IRA could lay down its arms and Sinn Fein could enter the talks process. They began, according to the British Government version, on 22 February, with a message saying: 'The conflict is over but we need your advice on how to bring it to a close.' They add that a public ceasefire announcement would 'cause confusion' for IRA volunteers.

Sir Patrick said the Government had a 'duty to respond' to the oral message from Martin McGuinness, the prominent Sinn Fein leader, whom the Government regard as a key IRA figure. The day before the bombing at Warrington, which killed two children and injured 56 people, the Government set out its definitive text in a nine- point memorandum.

The reply came in a message two days after the bombing in which the IRA leadership expressed 'total sadness' and added: 'It was the last thing we needed.' But despite Warrington and the bomb in Bishopsgate in the City of London on 24 April, they kept open a dialogue which culminated in the November exchange, prompted by the IRA saying 'we have the basis of an understanding'.

Some ministers with access to secret intelligence reports say it is not clear that the instigators of the peace moves, Mr McGuinness and Gerry Adams, have the full backing of the republican movement. Downing Street is confident they could deliver any deal.

The secret meetings, page 3

Inside Parliament, page 6

Leading article, letter, page 17

A lie that clings, page 19

Andrew Marr, page 19

(Photograph omitted)