What Ahern said:
Mr Ahern said: "If we get to the three stages: stage one - we set up the executive; stage two - there's devolution; stage three - Gen John de Chastelain reports. If at any stage - and this is the question I think people want to hear - if it becomes clear, and it would become clear very very fast, and far faster than anything else has happened over the years, that somebody had no interest, or they were trying to find another way out of the decommissioning issue, and they'd no intention of doing it - well, clearly people are not going to proceed.
"I don't think anyone really seriously believes that if that was to happen there was any way out and we could just go on with an executive as if nothing happened. That's not going to happen.
"But let us try to hope with a bit of hope and confidence and trust. I think what the position can be - and I just don't think it, it is a view that I formed over many months of trying to find a way around the decommissioning issue - that we can set up an executive.
"And surely we need to get to a position where first of all we can change our Constitution - I promised last night that as soon as the devolution powers are moved that I would immediately bring in the constitutional change. I will not wait. I will immediately change Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution. I will show my good faith and my trust and my confidence. I will not wait to see what happens afterwards.
"So we'll then have the principle of consent which has long been fought for and argued for against successive Irish governments. And then we'll see what happens with Gen John de Chastelain.
Question: And how crucial is it, in your view, that there's some kind of statement from the IRA - particularly since in An Phoblacht today it's reiterated by Gerry Adams that Sinn Fein is not the IRA - and I quote him - we've always made it clear, he says, that we do not represent any armed group, and he insists that Sinn Fein gave no commitments on decommissioning beyond the party's previously stated positions. So where is that commitment going to come from - it has to be the IRA?
Mr Ahern: "It does. I agree with you there - I've stated that. It's a changed position but it's no good arguing about why things have changed so much. But I noticed last week that all the parties believe that even though we used to say Sinn Fein-IRA - I said they were the opposite sides of the same coin, I think I was the one who made that statement back in about 1990 - the situation now is that they're two separate organisations. And we need therefore to believe that Sinn Fein have used their best endeavours - which I believe they are, I believe they're doing everything possible that they can.
"We need to hear from the IRA and I hope that we do - I hope we get a clear, unambiguous statement. I think that would do a great deal to reassure people, me included, that we're moving in the way that we are going. I believe that we are, but an IRA statement would, I think, have a profound effect, making sure, as I said last Friday, that we've crossed the Rubicon. That statement would, I think, be perhaps in some way the clincher because people would like to hear it."