The release of political prisoners has taken centre stage in the Northern Ireland debate on the Belfast Agreement, driven by dissatisfaction within the unionist community.
But the contentious issue has been largely ignored in the Republic. And when it did arise in the Dail last month, the Government was anxious to stuff it back in its box. Soothing noises were made by the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern.
With the Government locked in a nascent industrial dispute with members of the Garda over pay, the last thing Ministers wanted to do was to exacerbate the situation through the promised early release of garda-killers.
The name of the late Det Garda Jerry McCabe, who was murdered during a bank robbery in 1996, was like a tripwire in a minefield. Although people charged with his murder have yet to come before the courts, the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, told the Dail: "The Government has made clear in its contacts with all groups its view that persons who may be convicted in connection with this murder will not come within the ambit of the [Belfast] agreement."
But that is not what the agreement states. It provides for a review process that would "advance the release date of qualifying prisoners while allowing account to be taken of the seriousness of the offences for which the person was convicted and the need to protect the community".
If that did not happen, "any qualifying prisoners who remain in custody two years after the commencement of the scheme would be released at that point".
Mr Des O'Malley said it was "unthinkable and totally unacceptable" that people convicted in connection with the murder of Garda McCabe should be released within two years. The Belfast Agreement, the former PD leader said, "should not have contained that provision".
This "cherry-picking" of elements of the agreement was not confined to Ministers or Coalition TDs. While the Dail was united in its support of the agreement as a whole, the provision for the release of prisoners was unacceptable to many.
The Labour Party leader, Mr Ruairi Quinn, spoke of the need for a "consistency of approach to prisoners, north and south of the Border". But his predecessor, Mr Dick Spring, tended towards Mr O'Malley's position. He described the Sinn Fein demand for the early release of all political prisoners as "totally unacceptable".
Mr John Bruton did not touch on the matter in his original response to the agreement, but other members of Fine Gael expressed concern.
The response of the political parties has been a determined attempt not to rock the boat. The Garda Siochana is a powerful and influential body. It has opposed the early release of certain categories of prisoner. And no politician or political party enjoys getting off-side in that situation.
Mr Quinn was the only politician to state bluntly the unpopular line. They all accepted, he told the Dail, that a successful resolution of the prisoners issue was critical to a peaceful future. The sensitivities involved were important. But they "could not allow the message to go out that we tolerate the release of prisoners whose atrocities have been committed in the North while seeking to detain those who have offended against our institutions."
The Government approach appears to be an incremental one. First, get the agreement up and running; then consider how to implement such issues as prisoner release and decommissioning.
Two years down the road, a successful agreement, operating in a peaceful atmosphere, would carry unstoppable weight with the public for a general amnesty.