The Taoiseach is to tell the British Prime Minister at their meeting tomorrow that the postponed Northern elections should be held in the autumn. Michael O'Regan reports.
Mr Ahern said he would be stressing to Mr Blair that he could not see how they could work through a vacuum. "At present, I have my hand in a whole lot of dykes, trying to keep them in and to keep people together," he added.
"You would not be able to do that over a sustained period. We have endless meetings, with everybody everywhere just trying to keep the process going and the answer to it is to have elections."
The Taoiseach was replying to Mr Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (SF, Cavan-Monaghan), who had asked how forcefully Mr Ahern had conveyed the Dáil's view to Mr Blair that the elections should be held no later than the autumn.
Mr Ahern said he did not want to have an election for the sake of it and then nothing else to happen. "When we have the election, I want the Assembly to appoint a first minister and a deputy first minister," he added.
"I want to see the cross-party operations work, the executive set up as it was and for us to get back on track. I do not want to see an election and then a return to stalemate."
Earlier, Mr Ahern said that, while he was clear in his own mind on the issue, he was not sure all the parties had an agreed position. "Not to have elections a month ago was a bad mistake," he added.
"Not to have them in the autumn would be a desperate mistake. I have said this to everybody so I am not saying it here for the first time, and I have given all my reasons for that." He said it was not possible to have a vacuum and keep the political momentum going at the same time without an Assembly, an Executive, without full-time politicians being at their place of work, and without the North-South bodies working, although they still existed on a care-and-management basis.
"The Executive, for all its problems, had a high TAM rating with the public as a parliamentary assembly and the people had got used to dealing with it, and the pressure groups and people with various concerns got used to that system," he added.
Mr Ahern warned that "if one does not have the elections in the early autumn, you head into winter time and spring time and then you are back into the summer, and, God knows, what will be happening then." He said he hoped to meet the UUP leader, Mr David Trimble, on the other side of a successful election.
"Much depends on him," he added. "Whether he uses his, admittedly, narrow victory to move on to try to make progress or whether the elements in his party, who are clearly divided, continue to hold the pack is a question I cannot answer."
Replying to the Fine Gael deputy leader, Mr Richard Bruton, and the Labour leader, Mr Pat Rabbitte, the Taoiseach said he was delighted that Mr Trimble and his colleagues had prevailed, because the anti-agreement group within his party had a straightforward policy.
"I admire them for being straight about it but I disagree with them," he added. "Their policy is that they want an alliance with the DUP and they subscribe to the agenda that the Good Friday agreement should be renegotiated. My view is that the Good Friday agreement cannot be renegotiated because the people voted for it."
He hoped there would be agreement on early implementation of those aspects of the Joint Declaration which were clear, and that there would be progress on a date for the election.
The Green Party leader, Mr Trevor Sargent, asked the Taoiseach to convey to the Garda and the PSNI his party's appreciation of the interception of the 1,200 lb bomb.