Both governments are about to embark on a risky strategy to force movement, writes Gerry Moriarty, Northern Editor.
The Irish and British governments are on the brink of taking a sizeable risk which they hope will close the deal that was so close yet so elusive at Leeds Castle in September.
It involves the dangerous business of embarking on another round of the blame game - and in the dock this time is the DUP.
Often in the Northern peace process when recrimination begins, the chances of agreement end. Nonetheless, the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, with the full knowledge of the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, has decided to force the pace of events by chiefly fingering the DUP for the stalemate.
In Trinity College Dublin on Monday night and earlier at a doorstep with reporters in the city, Mr Ahern effectively warned the DUP it would be making a serious error of judgment if it rejected what the governments believe is an IRA commitment to go away.
He also questioned whether the DUP was up for power-sharing, hinting at an Irish-British suspicion that there are three strands to the DUP: those who don't want to do a deal; those who want to do a deal but not until after the Westminster election; and those who want to do a deal now. The DUP denies any divisions but perhaps Mr Ahern's provocative comments were designed to help decide which of these purported forces had dominance.
According to the Taoiseach the issues that divide Sinn Féin and the DUP are so paltry that ordinary people would find them "amusing".
So, Dublin and London officials are now putting the final touches to a document that Mr Ahern and Mr Blair believe republicans and the DUP could endorse, however reluctantly. The parties should have the paper - which is the governments' best read of what form a comprehensive deal should take - by the end of this week or early next week, according to official sources.
Thereafter they will have about a week or two to decide whether to accept or even grudgingly acquiesce to the proposals, or to reject them. The effective deadline for a deal is November 26th, the anniversary of last year's Assembly elections.
The governments appear to believe that the IRA is prepared to disarm fully and end activity but as Mr Ahern acknowledged on Monday, the DUP still has concerns over the credibility of IRA decommissioning.
Mr Ahern warned that the DUP being too prescriptive on transparency would be viewed by republicans as an attempt to humiliate the IRA. Equally, he said that the nature of disarmament must be more persuasive than October last year when the attempt by decommissioning chief, Gen John de Chastelain, to explain what arms the IRA had put beyond use had bordered on the farcical.
Other areas of disagreement include how the ending of IRA activity should be evaluated, ministerial accountability, when and how responsibility for policing and criminal justice should be devolved to the Assembly, and whether the First and Deputy First Minister should continue to be elected jointly.
Mr Ahern acknowledged that difficulties remained in all the known areas but he considered them minor. "Everyone must be prepared to take risks for a final agreement. But we do not believe, at this advanced stage of the process, that these risks are unmanageable for any party," he said.
The DUP leader, the Rev Ian Paisley, responded by accusing Mr Ahern of acting in bad faith and insisting his party would not settle "for any rag-bag deal just because he says we are facing a deadline".
However, the Irish and British governments appear determined to push ahead with their own take-it-or-leave-it proposals in the hope that the DUP will at least tolerate them. They are conscious that there is a considerable gamble to this pressure game, as DUP rejection would mean that the unknown plan B must come into the frame.
There are several options that the governments can consider in such a situation: the Assembly could be dissolved; Assembly elections could be called to coincide with a Westminster poll, most likely in spring or early summer of next year; the governments might opt for some form of shadow or alternative form of Assembly and/or Executive as suggested by the DUP and the SDLP.
Part of plan B must involve keeping Sinn Féin and the IRA on side. As one senior source said: "We believe that potentially what the IRA is offering is so good that we don't want to let it go."
That could involve ratcheting up the British-Irish dimension of the three-way internal Northern Ireland, North-South and east-west sets of relationships. It probably would not be called joint British-Irish authority but the threat of it might be portrayed as such, just to increase the pressure on the DUP.
It's a tricky brinkmanship game which the governments are playing. It could all end disastrously or it just might be the initiative that is required to shake up the stalled political process.