Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has said he believes that the leaders of the Provisional movement have been doing "everything they can" to ensure that the IRA has not been involved in criminality or paramilitary activity since July.
Speaking in Dublin following Fianna Fáil's annual 1916 commemoration at Arbour Hill Cemetery yesterday, Mr Ahern described this week's report by the Independent Monitoring Com- mission (IMC) on terrorist activity as one of the most important yet, and one he hoped would show the IRA no longer posed any criminal or terrorist threat.
"I hope that it's all borne out in that, but all of the indications have been, really, since July, that the leadership of the Provisional movement have been doing everything they can, not alone to stop all of the activities covered in the joint declaration, but also the issues of criminality.
"If that is borne out this week, then I think the political will has to be there in order to get the institutions and the Executive up and running by the November 24th."
He hoped that with the return of the Northern Assembly next month the Northern parties would "meet the challenge that has been set in a responsible way".
Mr Ahern reiterated the position of the British and Irish governments that they would move together on the implementation of the Belfast Agreement if no Executive is formed by this date.
"We really have to tie this down this year in 2006, there is no circumstances in which we can see ourselves going outside of that date," he said.
During his speech at Arbour Hill, where most of the executed 1916 leaders are buried, Mr Ahern said such a move by the governments was not the "preferred choice".
However, it was the "only option" to the Assembly where the governments could "fully discharge our responsibility to the electorates on this island", he added.
He said there was a particular responsibility on the two larger parties in the Northern Assembly, the DUP and Sinn Féin, to get the Executive up and running.
"I hope that we will, at an early stage, see the opening of productive dialogue between them and with the other parties," he said. "Because it is high time to talk and to agree.
"The opportunity may not arise again for some time if it is not seized this year."
Mr Ahern also used his speech to announce plans to repeal hundreds of out-of-date legislation introduced in the 19th century.
This follows the publication in recent months of 2,000 old laws that pre-dated 1800, which are to be repealed.
"Some of the laws now being repealed reflect the unacceptable way Ireland was governed before we achieved independence, such as the Act which declared Lord Edward Fitzgerald and other patriots of 1798 to be traitors," Mr Ahern said.
"There is no place in our modern Republic for such relics of imperial rule," he said.