The Taoiseach is demanding that Sinn Féin control IRA violence and drop the injured innocence, reports Mark Brennock.
A new tactic has been deployed by the Taoiseach in recent days of putting it up to Sinn Féin and the IRA, ridiculing republican doublespeak and demanding answers to questions.
It is tempting to see this as Sinn Féin portrays it: a campaign of rhetorical denunciation designed to halt Sinn Féin's electoral progress, of a piece with the attacks from Michael McDowell on the party over its fundraising and alleged involvement in criminality.
However, behind the tough language used by Mr Ahern lies a more sophisticated and important question to, and message for, the republican leadership.
The recent attempt by the Irish and British governments to engage the newly ascendant DUP in political negotiation has led to a small hope that over time a political accommodation can be reached which includes both them and republicans.
However, in parallel, concern has grown in Dublin that republicans may not be currently interested in political engagement, preferring instead to coast to local and European elections North and South in which they expect further gains and an even stronger electoral mandate.
So IRA activity - including openly beating its enemies senseless, dragging them out of pubs and trying to kill them - is threatening any chance of political progress.
According to a Government spokeswoman, the Taoiseach already made this point about the IRA's potential to undermine any modest movement from the DUP when he met Mr Martin McGuinness in Dublin on Wednesday.
Government sources yesterday pointed to the hardening of the Ulster Unionist Party position this week as a further sign of politics moving into reverse. "If this goes on it will be a long way back," said one source.
The Taoiseach and his officials have always felt that when dealing with the Sinn Féin leadership they were dealing with the IRA, or at least the dominant part of it. So when talks were at difficult stages, IRA activity could be relied upon to stay at a very low level. This is not happening now.
The question is whether Sinn Féin cares, or cares very much. The Government wants to know if the republican movement is interested in political engagement at the moment, and if so why it appears indifferent to the undermining of the political progress by the IRA.
One of the questions Mr Ahern appeared to be asking yesterday was whether the Sinn Féin leadership controlled or had substantial influence over the IRA. While saying he assumed Mr Adams had been in the IRA in the past, Mr Ahern said yesterday that this did not particularly concern him. "I'm not particularly interested if he was or if he wasn't [in the IRA] in history. I'm more interested in what's happening now."
He added later that the important question in relation to Mr Adams's relationship to the IRA was "the status presently and how close he is to the IRA today. The question that would be worth finding out is the present membership of the army council. Now I don't know that. I think that's an interesting question."
In other words, he assumed that in the past Adams and McGuinness had had significant control over the violence.
"Everybody is talking about last week's events because the people were caught," he said. "But I read the reports every Monday about what happened at the weekend by all sides and there has been an enormous amount of actions and activities in locations."
The question between the lines is: if Adams and McGuinness have control, why are they tolerating a level and seriousness of paramilitary activity that is bound to damage the political process? "I think Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness have a clear role to play", said the Taoiseach. The implicit message to them is that they should play it.