The Minister for Foreign Affairs said today he hoped the long-awaited final decommissioning of IRA weapons would take place within weeks.
Speaking during a visit to Belfast, Dermot Ahern said: "We are aware there are moves towards the preparation of decommissioning and as I have said before the sooner the better.
"There is something of a hiatus. The IRA statement was made and nothing has happened since then and there are tensions on all sides for something to happen."
He said a clear signal in relation to decommissioning would complement the very clear signal the British government gave of rapid movement towards demilitarisation once the IRA acted.
Action by the IRA to finally rid itself of weapons would "send a very clear signal to all and sundry, not just the governments, but the wider community - not least the unionist community - that one very significant element of the conflict of the last 35 years would appear to be at an end".
Mr Ahern said such movements by the IRA could do much to reduce the "hugely debilitating" tensions which had spilled over into sectarian violence in recent weeks.
Mr Ahern was in Belfast for meetings with the SDLP and Sinn Féin to discuss sectarian tensions and loyalist attacks on nationalist homes. He also visited the west Belfast interface for a meeting with representatives of community groups on both sides of the sectarian divide.
The Orange Order this weekend plans to proceed with the Whiterock annual parade, which earlier in the summer was banned from a small nationalist section of the Springfield Road by the Parades Commission.
There has been intense pressure from unionist politicians for the Parades Commission to reverse its decision and allow the parade to proceed along its traditional routes.
Mr Ahern said whatever decision the commission made the Government strongly believed that whether the ruling was right or not it should be accepted and upheld.