The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, has again called for a full independent inquiry into the Bloody Sunday events of 1970, when 14 people were killed in Derry by the British army. Mr Ahern was in Derry yesterday to meet relatives of the victims and lay a wreath at the memorial plinth erected in the Bogside in their memory. Mr Ahern said he wanted to acknowledge the amount of time the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, had given to the question of an inquiry.
With speculation increasing about whether Mr Blair will make an announcement in the House of Commons next Thursday, Mr Ahern said that, while an apology would be useful, he wanted the facts of what happened on Bloody Sunday made known.
"We have held back on the publication of our report and that we continue to do until the British government have an opportunity to give their view," Mr Ahern said. The Taoiseach said he wanted to acknowledge the effort and commitment so many people had put into the issue for so many years.
Later, speaking in the Rathmore Centre in the Creggan area of the city, Mr Ahern ruled out a purely internal settlement in Northern Ireland. "The settlement of the conflict here in Northern Ireland must be one that will have widespread support and that can thus be sustained.
"It has to be a fair and balanced accommodation of the legitimate concerns of all, so that it represents a win-win situation for all and is clearly seen as such. I know the people of Creggan identify themselves as Irish and identify with Ireland and everything Irish. That is why there cannot be any purely internal settlement and neither will there," he said.
"Nationalists cannot and will not ever again be second-class citizens, because only a balanced settlement can be successful," he added.
During Mr Ahern's first engagement in Derry, a working breakfast, four DUP members of Derry City Council handed in a letter of protest to one of his aides.
Just hours after the Taoiseach laid his wreath at the Bloody Sunday plinth, three other floral tributes were laid half a mile away in the city centre, at the spot where 21-year-old police constable Michael Ferguson was murdered five years ago.
Const Ferguson, a Catholic, was shot in the back of the head in Shipquay Street by the IRA after the police were called to investigate a shoplifting incident. Yesterday was the fifth anniversary of his death.