A resolution by Christmas of the deadlock over new institutions under the Belfast Agreement has become increasingly remote in spite of a warning by the Taoiseach that slippage beyond Monday would be "an awful mistake".
In Washington yesterday evening, President Clinton appealed to unionist and nationalist politicians to move the peace process forward, reminding them that they should "obey not only the letter of the Good Friday agreement but its spirit as well".
Eleventh-hour efforts to find common ground on the new government departments, implementation bodies and areas of common policy continued yesterday in Dublin and London.
However, decommissioning was forcing itself back on to the political agenda last night as the Ulster Unionists prepared to support Conservative demands in a Commons debate this afternoon for a halt to prisoner releases "until there has been substantial and verifiable decommissioning" of paramilitary weapons.
Disagreement between the Ulster Unionists and nationalists focuses on the immediate issues of the ministerial line-up of the Northern Ireland executive and the remit and number of the North-South implementation bodies.
During more than an hour of talks with the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, in Downing Street, the UUP deputy leader, Mr John Taylor, insisted his Assembly colleagues would only agree to six implementation bodies. In Dublin, Mr Ahern met the Deputy First Minister, Mr Seamus Mallon, and had brief discussions with a Sinn Fein delegation led by Mr Martin McGuinness which was meeting officials in Government Buildings. Setting Monday as the deadline for reaching agreement before Christmas, Mr Ahern indicated that the legislative timeframe for empowering the new institutions would fall if accord was not achieved now.
According to senior security sources, the Provisional IRA is not preparing to decommission weapons despite holding a round of meetings of its members at which the issue was discussed.
The sources say the IRA leadership has been unable to convince enough members that decommissioning should take place to facilitate Sinn Fein's entry into government in the North. There is said to be implacable opposition from the south Armagh IRA.
The Gardai and RUC have both received reports of a series of meetings of IRA members culminating in two at the weekend, one in Dublin on Friday and a larger meeting attended by several dozen IRA figures near the Border in Co Cavan on Saturday.
Despite reports that the IRA was considering decommissioning immediately after the formation of an executive at Stormont with Sinn Fein ministerial posts, there is considerable doubt over whether this will occur. Unless support grows significantly within the IRA for decommissioning, the leadership is not expected to hold one of its "conventions".
Meanwhile, in response to queries from the Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton, about reports that the IRA was ready to decommission some explosives, Mr Ahern said he had "absolutely no information on that". However, he understood there had been a meeting of senior IRA members over the weekend.