The Government may indeed be annoyed at Mr Tony Blair's decision to postpone the Assembly elections. "I think it creates more problems than it solves," the Taoiseach said yesterday. "We would have handled it differently."
But having repeated the mantra that the Government believed the elections should go ahead as planned, Mr Ahern went on to look forward to next Tuesday's meeting with Mr Blair at Farmleigh, at which he will seek the implementation of some aspects of the Joint Declaration that were sought by nationalists. Whatever the Government's level of annoyance, it is clear that it will get over it quickly - if it hasn't done so already.
For while the Government has repeatedly said it wants the elections to go ahead, it knows, too, that the reason given yesterday by Mr Blair for postponement has an obvious ring of truth. If the elections go ahead now without agreement, said Mr Blair, it will be more difficult still to form an executive once the contest is over. Or to put it another way, the wrong guys may well win.
An election now would be quite likely to bring victory for rejectionist unionism, and with it the nightmare of trying to advance a political process with the DUP and possibly Sinn Féin as the major parties, with the Ulster Unionists convulsed again in internal conflict. The Dublin sources who saw such a scenario as a likely outcome of an election agreed that it was not attractive.
Talk of a significant London-Dublin rift therefore appears wide of the mark. There was no surprise in Dublin at the British decision. There was no dispute between the two governments over whether the IRA's planned statement of its future intent and Mr Gerry Adams's clarification of it were enough to satisfy the UUP.
The Taoiseach declared yesterday that the republican position remained ambiguous. If the republicans want to say otherwise, Mr Ahern called on them to publish their statement for everyone to judge.
The Government is undoubtedly less concerned about this issue than is the British government and Mr David Trimble. However, it recognises the political reality as described by the Taoiseach yesterday that without absolute clarity "the people the republican movement need to convince will not be willing to contemplate inclusive government in Northern Ireland, and there lies the difficulty."
So the Government is now looking forward to the next business. The Taoiseach, Mr Brian Cowen and Mr Michael McDowell will work over the weekend to prepare a shopping list of measures contained in the Joint Declaration they believe could be implemented now, even without final agreement.
Whenever efforts to reach agreement between the Northern parties fail, the Government seeks to activate the British-Irish relationship to drive progress in key areas. The idea is to suggest that, while it may look as if politics has just crashed, it is actually alive and well, and the two governments are driving change. The lack of a deal doesn't freeze political progress.
The Government will now seek to have some elements of the Joint Declaration implemented anyway. "Disappointed as we are today, we look at this document in two parts. One part to be implemented forthwith - the quicker the better, that's the Irish Government's view. The second part to be the basis of ongoing work."
Some elements of the Joint Declaration are conditional on the IRA providing the necessary clarity. The very specific proposals concerning the reduction in the number of troops, security bases and watch-towers is specifically contingent on the IRA making a historic leap forward. Others, such as the ending of the British power to suspend the institutions, are also only politically viable if the IRA threat is accepted as having ended.
But there are many less central proposals concerning the regeneration of disadvantaged areas, financial support for Irish-language film and television production and equality and rights proposals which the Government will argue are good things in themselves and should be proceeded with.
Government sources yesterday backed up the Taoiseach's comment that the IRA knew exactly what wording was required of them, and had quite deliberately chosen not to deliver it.