The Taoiseach Bertie Ahern met with Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams for almost an hour last night to discuss the current difficulties facing the peace process.
They discussed the options required to get things back on track and agreed to meet again on their return to Ireland.
Mr Adams said: "The peace process is in serious difficulties at this time and I welcome the opportunity to meet the Taoiseach and Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern.
"It was a useful meeting and an opportunity to focus on how we can collectively resolve the outstanding issues," he said.
Earlier in the evening former Republican presidential candidate John McCain described Martin McGuinness's warning that the McCartney family "be careful not to step over the line into party politics" as a veiled threat and questioned his qualifications as an adviser.
In an address to the American Ireland Fund dinner in Washington, he took a clear swipe at Sinn Fein, warning that enough was enough.
"Anyone, Irish, American or British who desires and works for the success of peace, freedom and justice must denounce in the strongest possible terms not only the cowards who murdered Robert McCartney but the IRA itself and any political organisation that would associate with them," he said.
"Nor should they tolerate the veiled threat to the McCartney sisters or to anyone else with the courage and decency to speak the truth about the IRA."
Senator McCain, who was honoured with a Distinguished Leadership Award, said any political party who denied them the right to demand justice did so at the cost of exposing their own hypocrisy and complicity.
PA