The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, has rejected suggestions by the Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, that the Government has bowed to unionist threats and loyalist killings by diluting the joint Framework Document.
Mr Ahern insisted the proposed Heads of Agreement did not re place the Framework Document, but simply facilitated the opening of negotiation between the political parties on the outline of a three-stranded settlement.
Last night, a Sinn Fein spokesman confirmed that Mr Adams had expressed these concerns to the Taoiseach at a meeting last Friday before adding: "This mistaken view has been highlighted today with the murder of another young nationalist in Co Derry."
Any erosion of confidence that the peace process could deliver real and meaningful change to the status quo could undermine the nationalist position, the spokesman said.
Earlier, Mr Martin McGuinness was equally critical of the proposed Heads of Agreement in an RTE radio interview when he said they had been placed on the negotiating table "at the point of loyalist guns and a threat of withdrawal from the talks".
Sinn Fein however would not withdraw from the talks process, he said, as "nothing would delight the unionists more than we should walk away. We are going to challenge these proposed Heads of Ag reement and we are going to at tempt to change them." As far as he was concerned, the talks were about equality, justice and an all-Ireland settlement. Nationalists would not accept an internal settlement and a return to Stormont. Mr McGuinness ein had been involved in talks since December, the Ulster Unionist Party had refused to engage with it. He disclosed that Sinn Fein had rejected the proposed Heads of Agreement when they were put to it by the two governments and had urged the governments "not to give in to threats of violence".
The Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton, described the paper as "considerably less than that negotiated between myself and Mr John Major in terms of specifics".