Fianna Fáil has swiftly assured voters that it will not be sitting in government with Sinn Féin for a while yet, writes Mark Brennock, Chief Political Correspondent
No sooner had Dermot Ahern asserted that it was "only a matter of time" before Sinn Féin was in government in the Republic, than the Government moved swiftly yesterday to make it clear that it doesn't expect to be in cabinet with Sinn Féin any time soon.
The level of optimism in Dublin that a deal can be done in the North very soon has fallen considerably in recent weeks. After last month's Leeds Castle talks, some elements of the Government expressed high hopes that a deal could be done by Christmas.
In such a deal the IRA would decommission its weapons and wind itself up: the DUP would agree to return to and operate the power-sharing institutions in co-operation with Sinn Féin and the other parties.
And if this scenario came to pass, it had potentially enormous implications for how the game of politics is played in the Republic. In the event of a deal, the next general election could take place a full two years after the IRA had finally "gone away". Consistent opinion poll results suggest that neither the current Fianna Fáil/PD coalition nor the Fine Gael/Labour/Green Party alternative would win a Dáil majority. Thus an expanded Sinn Féin Parliamentary Party, possibly with as many as 12 seats, could hold the balance of power.
So if a deal in the North was wrapped up by Christmas, Sinn Féin entry into government in the Republic two years later was not far-fetched at all.
In this context, the remarks by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dermot Ahern, at Hillsborough on Tuesday caused some excitement. "If circumstances change, our view in relation to Sinn Féin going into government will change", he said.
"I believe it is only a matter of time that Sinn Féin will be in government in the future. There will come a time, I envisage, when Sinn Féin will be in government in the Republic as they will be in the North and I hope that happens in the future."
If a deal really was just around the corner, this suggested that the Government might be preparing for the next step: the full acceptance of a sanitised Sinn Féin into the political process in the Republic as potential government partners. With this would come the added attraction for Fianna Fáil that, even if it lost some seats in the next election, it had a new option that could keep it in power.
However, some elements of the Government remained sceptical, despite the optimism at Leeds Castle, about whether a deal in the North would be done that quickly.
Inquiries yesterday suggested that that scepticism has deepened, and the prevailing view in Dublin now is that the deal, if it comes, is some time away.
The Government statement issued last night reflected this view. Indeed, the Government set out yesterday morning to correct the impression, given by Dermot Ahern, that politics in the Republic was about to be transformed.
While Mr Ahern had said on Tuesday that it was "only a matter of time" before Sinn Féin was in government in the Republic, the Minister for Education, Ms Hanafin, was sent out yesterday to say she could not see that happening "for the moment".
She elaborated: "I think Sinn Féin have a long, long way to go. I think they have a long way to go in their background, in their activity that they are involved in and in distancing themselves from the past, and I can at the moment see absolutely no circumstances in which their policies for the economy and for the future of this country would tally with mine."
Asked again if she could see Sinn Féin around the same cabinet table as her, she said: "I certainly can't see that for the moment."
The Government statement issued yesterday evening publicised remarks made by the Taoiseach at last week's meeting of the Fianna Fáil Parliamentary Party. At the end of that meeting Dr Jim McDaid demanded to know the Taoiseach's position in relation to future participation in government with Sinn Féin.
According to the Government statement: "At this meeting he made it clear that there are issues which still need to be resolved before this matter will be reviewed by Fianna Fáil. There has to be an end to paramilitarism, we must see decommissioning of weapons and there can be no place for private armies."
This does not contradict nor purport to correct anything Dermot Ahern said. But it distances the Government from Mr Ahern's optimistic tone.
Despite initial suspicions that Mr Ahern had set out deliberately to begin conditioning voters to accept the idea of a Fianna Fáil/Sinn Féin coalition, Government sources, including those close to Mr Ahern, said he had no such premeditated aim in mind.
Rather, they say, he was simply answering a question he did not particularly expect. As Minister for Foreign Affairs, he was playing to an audience of Northern politicians as well as to the domestic electorate. The DUP is more than willing to point out the apparent hypocrisy of the Government demanding that unionists sit in government with Sinn Féin while refusing to do so themselves. Mr Ahern may have been keen to ensure he did not give the DUP any further ammunition on this matter.
But talk of a FF/SF coalition is premature, and unless a deal in the North is struck soon there will be too little time before the next election for the large numbers of Fianna Fáil middle-class voters to get used to the idea of their party being in government with them. At this point, it seems unlikely.
Few disagree with Dermot Ahern's assertion that it is "only a matter of time" before Sinn Féin are in government in the Republic. But it seems likely that it could be a matter of quite a long time yet.