The Taoiseach has said he has formed no view on whether there should be a further inquiry into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings or on what shape such an inquiry should take.
Mr Ahern also said he had no explanation for how some 68,000 files on the bombings appeared to have "vanished" from the Department of Justice's records.
Speaking in the Dáil this afternoon, Mr Ahern said he wanted to wait until the Oireachtas sub-committee, which is examining the Barron report, has completed its hearings and issued its own findings."I think we should wait until the end of the process," he said.
He said the Northern Ireland Office and previous secretaries of state for Northern Ireland had tried to find files to assist the process but it had not seemed to be possible to find the records.
Mr Ahern said previous inquiries by "high-standing people" into how the files had disappeared had taken place. He did not see a situation where there would be a new inquiry, he said.
Mr Ahern said additional searches had been done over the years but the files had not been found. Sometimes files had turned up a year late when records were released under the 30-year rule, Mr Ahern said.
"It is a fact a large number of files vanished," he said. Mr Ahern said there had been investigations by the Garda Commissioner and he could look up the reports on the matter again.
Mr Ahern was responding to the Labour leader Mr Pat Rabbitte, whoi asked whether, given the Dublin and Monaghan bombings were "the greatest act of mass murder in the history of this State", it wasn't "extraordinary" that the files had gone missing in the Department of Justice.
Mr Ahern said he understood Mr Justice Barron's separate report into two other bombings in Dublin in 1972 and 1973 would be delivered "in the coming months".
Mr Justice Barron appeared before the Oireachtas sub-commitee today and defended his criticisms of the Irish Government's efforts to find those responsible for the atrocities.