The Sinn Féin president, Mr Gerry Adams, has complained that his telephone calls to the Taoiseach to discuss the political consequences of the Northern Bank robbery have gone unanswered for the last week, writes Gerry Moriarty, Northern Editor
Mr Adams said he had phoned every day since Monday, first "more in disappointment than anger" last Friday.
"After 10 years the least I thought, if we are into this serious juncture, is that Bertie Ahern would have lifted the phone, as he has done numerous times, and said, 'Gerry, A, B and C'."
Mr Adams said he was not saying that Mr Ahern refused to take his calls. "I am also told he is on a break at the moment. I am told he hasn't been available for any media whatsoever and I have to believe that. But, as I said to the official, if the Taoiseach wanted to meet me he would meet me. If the Taoiseach wanted to make a call to me, he would make a call to me."
The Taoiseach's spokeswoman said Mr Ahern was on a short holiday break at the moment as he had had a busy working Christmas. He would be flying to China this weekend and would be available to meet Mr Adams on his return.
Mr Adams said he wanted to repudiate the Taoiseach's belief that the Sinn Féin leadership knew during the recent political negotiations with the British and Irish governments of the plan to rob the Northern Bank.
The PSNI Chief Constable, Mr Hugh Orde, believes the £26.5 million robbery was carried out by the Provisional IRA.
Mr Adams said he respected the Taoiseach but he had urged him, through an official, not to make his allegations of the Sinn Féin leadership knowing about the planned robbery until he first spoke to him.
Meanwhile, the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, has fired a fierce broadside against Sinn Féin and the IRA. He spoke of a republican project to "rewrite history and to baptise the most brutal, cowardly, blood- soaked, divisive, anti-republican, sectarian, hate-driven and destructive terror campaign as a heroic struggle for peace and human rights.
"The massive untruth at the heart of Sinn Féin is that it claims to operate as an organisation wholly separate from the IRA. In fact, as the Taoiseach has said repeatedly, Sinn Féin and the IRA are two sides of one coin," added Mr McDowell.
He said the Provisional leadership "betrayed the Tricolour and the reconciliation that it symbolises. They have hijacked history. They have put a gun to the head of hope."