The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, has told the Sinn Féin leadership that there is no room for further negotiations on the blueprint to restore devolution in Northern Ireland that he and the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, will present to the pro-Belfast Agreement parties next month.
At a meeting in Dublin yesterday, Mr Ahern made it clear to the Sinn Féin leader, Mr Gerry Adams, and the party's chief negotiator, Mr Martin McGuinness, that the British-Irish package for reinstating the Stormont institutions is finalised, according to a senior Government source.
While Sinn Féin continues to insist that the issue of sanctions could wreck the prospects of republicans acquiescing to the document, the British and Irish governments have stiffened their position and insisted that the discussions are over.
Later the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, at the British-Irish Inter-Parliamentary Body in Kilkenny, warned against parties seeking a "concession too far".
Describing a postponement of the assembly elections beyond May 29th as 'a non-starter', the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, speaking to the British/Irish Inter-Parliamentary Body in Kilkenny, said: "I don't see any benefit from deferring in the event of non-agreement." Urging all parties to act quickly, he said: "Now is not the time to play the process long, to seek to extract one concession too far, to assume that the doors of people who have been endlessly patient and supportive remain as generously open as they have in the past.
"As in the affairs of men, there is also a tide of opportunity for conflict resolution that inevitably recedes if not taken on the flood," he told the Irish and British parliamentarians.
The Minister met with the Northern Ireland Secretary of State, Mr Paul Murphy in Iveagh House yesterday, and later held a separate meeting, along with the Taoiseach, with Sinn Fein's Mr Gerry Adams and Mr Martin McGuinness.
Insisting that the package will not then be up negotiation, he offered hints that the Government accepts that it may be some further weeks before the final attitude of the parties will be finally known.
"The last date for the dissolution of the Assembly is April 28th, so you have to work back from that," he told Conservative MP, and former Northern Ireland Office Minister of State, Mr Michael Mates.
The meeting with the NI Secretary of State had dealt with "preparations" for the return visit of the Taoiseach and Prime Minister to Hillsborough, he said.
Government sources contradicted Mr Adams's comment last week that the issue of penalties for parties in breach of their Belfast Agreement obligations was "work in progress". The matter was concluded, they said.
Sinn Féin opposed the creation of an international monitoring body to deal with sanctions because, the party contended, this would be outside the terms of the agreement.
The two governments and Sinn Féin now appeared deadlocked on sanctions, As recently as last Friday, Mr Adams warned sanctions could be a "deal-breaker".
Mr Adams said that the arms find in south Belfast at the weekend should not be a block to political progress.
Two men are expected to appear in Belfast court today in connection with the arms find which the PSNI said belonged to the Provisional IRA. Before his meeting with Mr Ahern, he said unionists should not get into a "tizzy" over the find. "We can't pretend it's not important, but let's not give too much significance to it."
The Ulster Unionist leader, Mr David Trimble, said the find raised serious questions about the commitment of republicans to the peace process. To Mr Adams and Mr McGuinness, he said: "Why are prominent members of mainstream IRA engaged in preparation for violence, because clearly that's what this is? What's going on? Who is in charge? Are you really preparing the ground for the acts of completion that we talked about at Hillsborough? And if not, what is the game?"
Mr Trimble said that PSNI Chief Constable Hugh Orde should also reveal where and when the weapons were manufactured, suggesting that he suspects they were recently smuggled into Northern Ireland. A PSNI spokesman said the guns and ammunition were being forensically examined.
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