The Taoiseach strongly rejected the call by the UUP leader, Mr David Trimble, for a referendum on a united Ireland on the same day as the Assembly elections next year.
Mr Ahern said that to have a vote before the review of the Belfast Agreement, combining it with the Assembly elections, would "be a disaster and a zany proposal". He was replying to Mr Austin Currie (FG, Dublin West) who said the reaction to the controversial speech made by Mr Trimble, and to his "insulting remarks directed at the State" had distracted from the more important reference to a referendum on the future constitutional position of the North.
Mr Currie said the emphasis should be on bedding down the Belfast Agreement institutions and on the representatives of the two traditions working together to tackle the social, economic, political, cultural and other problems of the North.
Predictions of a united Ireland within five or 10 years, or even before the centenary of the 1916 rebellion, were "dangerous nonsense".
Mr Ahern said he broadly agreed with Mr Currie. He added that the first review of the agreement was not due for four years and nobody could have foreseen that it would be otherwise.
"However, to say before the review of the agreement that the major clause should be deleted and a plebiscite held makes no sense, and it certainly was not the basis of the prolonged discussions I had on this and many other issues. That was not the position."
He said that following the full implementation of the agreement, people could reflect on whether there was support for a plebiscite.
