European Elections: Adams places peace issue at head of Sinn Fein campaign

THE British government is expected to publish 'a commentary' today on the Downing Street declaration after the 20 questions submitted by Gerry Adams, the president of Sinn Fein.

Mr Adams yesterday promised an early response when he launched the party's European election campaign in Dublin under the slogan 'Peace in Ireland - a European Issue'.

Asked whether Sinn Fein would accept a commentary on the questions as opposed to a formal 'clarification', he said it was important that the answers should be 'frank, clear, honest and unambiguous'.

Mr Adams argued that Dublin had a crucial role to play in 'marshalling European and wider international goodwill' towards Ireland, not to take sides but to encourage progress towards peace.

He was flanked by the party's seven candidates for the 9 June poll, three running in Northern Ireland and one each in the Leinster, Munster, Connacht-Ulster and Dublin constituencies south of the border.

Having reiterated that the conflict was in its final stages, he was asked how he reconciled this with the IRA's continued killings. While insisting that Sinn Fein was not involved in killing, he said it was 'a legitimate question for those who are doing the killing'.

The Cabinet ad hoc committee on Northern Ireland is expected to meet again today to finalise the carefully worded response to Sinn Fein's demands for clarification.

But time is running out for Sinn Fein to renounce violence. The Irish government, which will see the text of the British response before it is published, has been pressing John Major to be positive.

Albert Reynolds, the Irish Prime Minister said at the weekend that the Republican movement knew that the two governments still hoped that they would opt to play their part in achieving a new beginning by renouncing violence.

But he warned Sinn Fein and the IRA: 'They must also know, as Edmund Burke once put it, that 'there is a limit at which forbearance ceases to be virtue'.'

Seamus Mallon, the SDLP MP, said after another sectarian killing that the parties had been waiting since December for a response by the IRA. It was time to implement the principles in the declaration, he said.

The Liberal Democrats called on the Government to put forward a comprehensive plan as soon as the European elections were over.

The policy paper proposes a power-sharing executive answerable to an assembly of representatives elected by proportional voting; cross-border agencies answerable to the new devolved government in Belfast and the Irish government, and a package to guarantee civil liberties.

There is also a commitment to hold referendums from time to time to determine whether most of the people of Northern Ireland wish to remain part of the United Kingdom.

In London, the Commons select committee on Northern Ireland yesterday held its first meeting. It was told by Tim Smith, under-secretary of state for Northern Ireland, that, although unemployment fell, the province's unemployment rate of 13.3 was unacceptably high.

Of the 99,000 out of work, 55 per cent had been without a job for a year or more and 29 per cent had been jobless for more than three years. The corresponding figures for England and Wales were 37 per cent and 11 per cent.

A New Deal For Northern Ireland; Liberal Democrats; pounds 3.50.