The future of Northern Ireland must lie in a local, accountable, devolved, powersharing government, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has said at the conclusion of a meeting with the Northern Secretary in Wales.
Mr Ahern was speaking after a meeting in Cardiff involving himself, Northern Secretary Peter Hain and Foreign Affairs Minister Dermot Ahern. The opportunity to meet arose as the Irish rugby team travelled to Cardiff to play Wales in a Six Nations fixture.
"The election on March 7th must be about the future of Northern Ireland and that future lies in a locally accountable, devolved, powersharing Assembly and executive," Mr Ahern said.
"This must be in place on March 26th. It is devolution or dissolution."
Ahead of the meeting, Mr Hain said Sinn Féin's support of policing left "no excuses for unionists to balk at power-sharing during the election or after".
Mr Hain said he believed the DUP leadership wanted devolved government, despite "off-stage noises" to the contrary.
He insisted the deadline of March 26th was non-negotiable.
"We are determined to ensure that everybody understands with crystal clarity that March 26th is the day for devolution, or dissolution will follow."
Mr Hain told television breakfast show GMTV that while the path to power-sharing would not be easy, it would happen. "I don't expect any handshakes for the cameras. What I expect is a very scratchy election campaign and probably a bit scratchy thereafter," he said.
"But the difference here, is not just the things I described, it's that the conditions are in place for stable government with support for policing and the rule of law and a commitment to power-sharing on all sides."
DUP MP Gregory Campbell yesterday reiterated a statement he made before Christmas in which he said it was "an insult to people's intelligence" to expect power-sharing to be restored by March 26th.
He said the party still wanted to see a "series of delivery mechanisms" from Sinn Féin, including support of police on the ground by party members and activists and the delivery of the murderers of Robert McCartney, on top of their statement of support for the police at the party's ardfheis on January 28th.
"They can say that [ they support the police] and it is good that they did but it has to mean something in practice over a credible period of time." And he said the party was indifferent to the governments' deadline of March 26th. "We have seen a series of other deadlines pass and we're not going to pay any more attention to this latest one."
Mr Campbell also said the DUP was awaiting delivery from the British government on "cultural issues, parades and confidence building measures for unionists", including the availability of British passports for those who were born in the Republic but had lived for long periods in the North.
SDLP leader Mark Durkan told party members at the weekend that they have "a fight" on their hands in the Assembly election next month.
Mr Durkan - who faced controversy after he claimed in an advertisement that the SDLP had secured the appointment of Hugh Orde as chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland - was addressing election candidates, directors and activists at a campaign rally in south Belfast on Saturday night.