The Taoiseach will today stand over the demand by the Irish and British governments that IRA decommissioning will have to be photographed unless another compromise acceptable to all sides can be found.
However, Mr Ahern will not apologise to the Democratic Unionist Party leader, Rev Ian Paisley, following his apparent blunder on Monday when he said photography was "unworkable".
The DUP will decide after Mr Ahern speaks in the Dáil at 12.15 p.m. whether or not to keep a scheduled meeting with the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Dermot Ahern, in Hillsborough shortly after 3 p.m.
Last night the Government spokeswoman said the Taoiseach would say "that he continues to believe that the proposals published last week are the best way forward on this issue."
However, she said, the Taoiseach had already spoken with the DUP leader to deal with "any offence" caused by his remarks on Monday.
"He took very swift action. The Dáil speech is not to be an apology," she said.
The Government, she said, "presumed" that Dr Paisley was not seeking a public apology. "We would presume that they are looking for the record to be straightened out."
The Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Northern Secretary, Mr Paul Murphy, will, along with US President Bush's special envoy, Mr Mitchell Reiss, meet the parties in Hillsborough.
In Limavady, Co Derry, yesterday, Mr Murphy indicated the two governments were open to suggestions of an alternative to decommissioning photographs.
"Now, it may be that there may be some way in which we can get around the issue of photographs in some other method, or use some other method of transparency.
"But the key to it is not the mechanism but it is the acceptability of whatever it is that everybody can agree on," he said.
Last night, the Government rejected charges by the SDLP leader, Mr Mark Durkan, that it has bowed to DUP demands to change the Belfast Agreement.
In Dublin, Mr Durkan said the SDLP could be thrown out of the Executive if it failed to vote for, or abstained from, a motion to appoint a DUP first minister and Sinn Féin deputy first minister.
Acknowledging that Mr Durkan was "essentially correct", the Government spokeswoman said the new rules would prevent parties "from having it each way", by forcing all those interested in holding office to vote for the Executive.
Meanwhile, the Minister for Communications, Mr Dempsey, said some of those opposing the release of the killers of Garda Jerry McCabe were "undermining the Government's efforts to bring about an end" to 30 years of violence.
"In that context it would be a complete betrayal of the Irish people to refuse to consider the release of the remaining prisoners in Irish prisons no matter how unpalatable that may be," he said in a letter to The Irish Times.
"This is especially so if it means that no other family will have to suffer the pain and trauma that Ann McCabe, her family and thousands like them suffered because of the violence inflicted on them," he said.
Rejecting the Government's charge that Fine Gael was exploiting the McCabe issue, senior Fine Gael sources last night said they had not tried to damage Mr Ahern following his apology to Dr Paisley.
In the Seanad yesterday, Dr Martin Mansergh said the Taoiseach's apology was an example of "a non-macho approach to peace making" that should be followed by Northern parties.
