The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, said today the Government would have to consider the legal aspects of any possible calls for the extradition of three Irishmen by the Colombian government.
Mr Ahern said the Attorney General was awaiting a translation of the ruling in the Colombia court case which overturned an earlier acquittal and sentenced James Monaghan, Niall Connolly and Martin McCauley to 17 years in prison.
The three men are currently in hiding.
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"We don't have presently an extradition agreement with Colombia. We will have to look at the legal aspects that arise," Mr Ahern said.
"One of the three was carrying an Irish passport and there could be legal matters around that. They probably served their sentence on that. So I think all of the legal matters will have to be looked at."
As two members of Sinn Féin arrived in Colombia to meet lawyers for the men convicted of training Marxist rebels, Mr Ahern said the Irish Government was keeping in contact with authorities in the South American country.
Assembly members Mr Gerry Kelly and Ms Caitriona Ruane, who leads the Bring Them Home pressure group, said on their arrival in Bogota that they were deeply concerned by the ruling.
"The decision was made behind closed doors, without any hearings," Ms Ruane said. "It's shocking."
Lawyers for the trio have still not decided whether to appeal. Colombian authorities have admitted they have lost track of the trio since their release from prison last June pending the court appeal.
Mr Ahern told Today FM radio station: "Now there is the complication because they are not in the country and we have to look at the legal arguments around that.
"I think people felt the judge on the first hearing was a reasonably fair person," he said. "Then you go on an appeal and you end up getting 17 years so on the face of it that looks very difficult."
Sinn Féin MEP Ms Mary Lou McDonald said a decision was made at a political level in Colombia that the ruling would be appealed. "It was not a public process. It involved three judges sitting privately over a period of six months and then delivering a judgement," she said.
Interpol is drafting international arrest warrants for the men who all have links with the republican movement.
The judge who cleared them of the charge of training rebels in April, but convicted them of the lesser change of entering the country on false passports, ordered they be freed on bail pending the appeal by the country's attorney general on condition they stayed in Colombia.
They were supposed to report to the authorities every week, but it has emerged they never did.
The Irishmen were arrested at Bogota airport in August 2001 after leaving a stronghold of FARC rebels deep in the jungles in the south of the country.
The authorities accused them of teaching members of FARC how to make bombs. They insisted they were innocent and had been in the country to observe peace talks between the Colombian government and the rebels. The talks collapsed six months after their arrest.
PA