The Taoiseach and the British Prime Minister have pledged to inject new life into the Northern talks after Christmas, "driving the agenda forward" by producing draft texts of agreement over an intense 10-week period.
"The two governments are focused and are in a very determined mood," Mr Ahern declared after a one-hour meeting with Mr Blair last night. "It needs momentum, a push from us, and we are going to do that."
From January 11th, he said, they have designated a 10-week period during which the two governments would show "considerable engagement" in the process. The talks would be divided into sub-groups discussing key issues, and the governments would "drive the agenda", producing texts of possible agreements on the future relationship between North and South and Britain and Ireland.
Mr Ahern also promised "a lot of work on constitutional issues on both sides - and remember the constitutional issues are on both sides". After the 10 weeks, he said, there would still be work to do, but both he and Mr Blair hoped to have made substantial progress towards a written deal at the end of that time.
He said he and Mr Blair had "reaffirmed our strongly-held view that an agreement can be put in place that is reasonable and fair to all. We confirmed that we were working towards the target date of May 1998."
He said they had made considerable progress on the issue of prisoners. "I expect to see the transfer of quite a number of prisoners over the next few weeks following the passage through the Oireachtas of the Transfer of Sentenced Prisoners Bill." Mr Ahern will also have discussions on Northern Ireland with President Clinton in Washington on Monday.
See also page 9