Government and Opposition politicians warned yesterday that Mr David Trimble's move would put enormous pressure on the political process in Northern Ireland in the three weeks after the British general election on June 7th.
The Taoiseach told the Dail that Mr Trimble had given no warning either to him or the British Prime Minister of his resignation threat before yesterday. Mr Ahern and the Labour leader, Mr Ruairi Quinn, warned yesterday that deadlines had been shown not to help matters in the North.
Expressing surprise at Mr Trimble's statement, Mr Ahern told the Dail yesterday that during a lengthy meeting with him last Friday, "he made no mention of this. I understand from the British Prime Minister that he only heard word of it five minutes before it was announced and that Seamus Mallon only heard about it two minutes before the announcement." He said the key people on the British side involved in driving the political process in recent years "are not civil servants, they are political advisers to Mr Blair". They were now obliged to resign their positions pending the formation of a new British government. "I hope that progress will leave us in a position to take up these matters after the election but we have learned many times over the past seven or eight years that the process is usually not helped by deadlines."
The Fine Gael leader, Mr Michael Noonan, said Mr Trimble's move "poses the most serious threat yet to the Good Friday agreement, unless the republican movement makes a serious and credible move towards decommissioning by 30th June". Mr Quinn warned that Mr Trimble had "played into the hands" of those who wished to turn the election into a rerun of the referendum on the Good Friday agreement. He said Sinn Fein shared responsibility for Mr Trimble's statement. "Despite a number of false dawns, we have seen no substantial moves on decommissioning by the IRA. The timetable for decommissioning is now two years behind schedule. Decommissioning is part of the agreement and as such must be implemented."