The Taoiseach has said he would oppose any attempt to delay the Northern Ireland Assembly elections, which are due to be held next May.
"I would be totally opposed to delaying the election. The people have their say, and I do not see circumstances that should delay the election," Mr Ahern said yesterday in Dublin.
Speaking at the National Library, Mr Ahern said: "We just have to see where we go from here. The Government position is that we do not in any way affect the institutions, that we keep the institutions intact. But there is great difficulty doing that if there isn't trust and confidence."
However, he appeared reluctantly to accept that the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, will have little choice but to suspend the institutions from "early to mid next week".
But he said the plans by the Democratic Unionist Party to try and exclude Sinn Féin from the Northern institutions by the end of this week were "not helpful and would create their own difficulties".
"Whatever happens to the institutions in the short term, we are concerned about how we can repair that in the medium term and get it up and running and functioning again after an election that is legally down to happen on May 1st.
"We have to made sure that any short-term damage can be corrected in the medium term," said Mr Ahern, who was briefed by Mr Blair about the allegations of espionage made against republicans.
"The blame game never gets us anywhere in Northern Ireland. What we have to do is to try as effectively as we can to deal with this difficult situation and establish how we can bring this forward," he said.
The Government would push to ensure that as much of the Good Friday agreement as possible remained in operation, even if the Assembly and Executive were suspended.
"The agenda is the Good Friday agreement. There is no other agenda. The template for the future of Northern Ireland, as far as the Irish Government is concerned, is the Good Friday agreement," the Taoiseach said.
