Mr David Trimble put his political career on the line yesterday, saying he would resign as First Minister within eight weeks if the IRA did not begin to disarm by July 1st. The move was seen in the North as a high-risk effort to avoid heavy Ulster Unionist Party losses in the forthcoming general election.
The Taoiseach said he had had no advance notice of the move, which came just hours before the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, announced the UK general election would take place on Thursday, June 7th.
Mr Trimble told the Assembly he had given the Speaker, Lord Alderdice, a post-dated letter of resignation because he wanted to make "absolutely clear" that the June deadline for decommissioning mattered.
"The IRA promised a year and two days ago that they would put their weapons beyond use," the UUP leader said. "There was no deadline then and they were given a whole year to do something. They haven't done it."
Mr Trimble refused to spell out exactly what actions by the republican movement would forestall his resignation. "I don't expect total decommissioning by July 1st, but I expect to see them begin to put their weapons beyond use, completely and verifiably, as they promised." Representatives of the other main political parties in the North severely criticised Mr Trimble's move.
Sinn Fein's chief negotiator, Mr Martin McGuinness, said the move was "absolutely disastrous", while the Democratic Unionist Party deputy leader, Mr Peter Robinson, accused Mr Trimble of staging "a pathetic and cynical election stunt". The North's Deputy First Minister, Mr Seamus Mallon, of the SDLP, said Mr Trimble had given him just two minutes' notice of his resignation letter.
Mr Mallon said there was "clearly a political context and an electoral context" to the move and warned that anybody who thought republicans would give in to such pressure was "very much mistaken".
In Dublin, Government and Opposition politicians warned that Mr Trimble's move would put enormous pressure on the political process in Northern Ireland in the three weeks after the UK general election.
The Taoiseach told the Dail that Mr Trimble had given no warning either to him or to Mr Blair of his resignation threat before yesterday. Mr Ahern said that during a lengthy meeting with him last Friday "he made no mention of this."
The Fine Gael leader, Mr Michael Noonan, said Mr Trimble's move "poses the most serious threat yet to the Good Friday agreement, unless the republican movement makes a serious and credible move towards decommissioning by June 30th".
The Labour Party leader, Mr Ruairi Quinn, warned that Mr Trimble had "played into the hands of those who wish to turn the election into a rerun of the referendum on the Good Friday agreement".
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Dr John Reid, said it would be "highly regrettable" if Mr Trimble resigned: "Progress needs to be made on all fronts. The two governments set June as the date by which they believed substantial progress would be made to secure the full implementation of the agreement.
"David Trimble has made his own position clear. That is entirely a matter for him, but it would, in my view, be highly regrettable if he were to exclude himself from institutions which are already improving the lives of people in Northern Ireland."