A senior Ulster Unionist Party MP today said he would have the courage to reject any unsatisfactory deal offered on Northern Ireland.
Jeffrey Donaldson said that if next week's deal was "half-baked" and did not offer what unionists were looking for he would be prepared to say it was not enough.
"Sometimes in life when something is not right and you can see it's not right then the honourable thing to do is to say no," Mr Donaldson said in an interview on RTE. "I will look at it, I will weigh it up and I will judge it against what we said we would require when we met last September and agreed a unanimous policy decision.
"And on that basis I will give advice to the Ulster Unionist Council as to what I believe is the best response to this, whatever proposals emerge." Mr Donaldson, whose comments come ahead of tomorrow's crucial meeting in Belfast between the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, the British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the Pro-Agreement parties, said it was now time for the IRA to disarm and disband.
"Next week really is the day of reckoning and it is the day of reckoning particularly for the IRA and to a certain extent for the loyalist paramilitary groups," he said. "I think what we need to see next week, what we need to hear next week, is that the IRA are now going to move on the arms issue, that they are going to disarm properly in a verifiable manner, and that they are going to disband their illegal organisation."
Mr Donaldson said he was totally disillusioned with the way republicans had played "fast and loose" with the peace process. "Time and time again they have issued statements, fancy words, offering much but in the end delivering little," he said. "It is time for delivery. It is time for the IRA to put up or shut up. That is where they have to be next week. "That is what the unionist community that I represent requires from them."
"The IRA must disband and disarm," Mr Donaldson added. "No equivocation, no fudging, no halfway house, not one foot on one side of the fence of democracy, the other on the side of terrorism." PA