The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, has said that the British government should announce next week that elections will take place in the North before the end of November, even in the absence of an agreement between the Ulster Unionist Party and Sinn Féin.
The Taoiseach, warned, however, that failure to find agreement by next Wednesday would place the pro-Agreement parties in an unenviable position entering an election campaign.
"I would hold the view that we still have to hold elections, but it creates an awful dilemma because if we don't have an election I think we're into an enormous period of uncertainty. It would be very difficult to try to explain to all the political activists and the people in the communities in the North who have been canvassing twice this year for elections. I'm not sure how you'd explain to them that they're off again.
"I do not think that would do the process any good," he said.
Mr Ahern was speaking in Brussels where he and the British prime minister, Mr Tony Blair, are attending a meeting of EU leaders.
The two men are expected to meet this morning in Brussels and to remain in regular contact throughout the weekend. The Taoiseach said he hoped he had persuaded Mr Blair that voters in the North could not be expected to wait until next year before exercising their democratic mandate.
"I think we just have to have the elections. I'm not telling you I'd be doing that with any huge enthusiasm but I just think on the balance of it, it's very hard to tell people that you're heading for the sixth year since an election on what was a five-year mandate and that you're still not having elections," he said.
Mr Ahern's remarks follow days of intense negotiations between the two governments, the UUP and Sinn Féin. In their Joint Declaration last April, the governments called for a "full and permanent" cessation of all paramilitary activity and an "historic act of completion" that would put all paramilitary weapons beyond use.
The governments want the UUP to make a commitment to keep the institutions in the North functioning in a stable and consistent manner.
"It's to get both sides to trust that what we're saying on one side is what we'll do on the other side and that it will all happen. And needless to say, as always in the North, to get all parties agreeing that whatever words we use are words that can carry everybody," Mr Ahern said last night.
The Taoiseach said that the two sides had just five days to agree, adding that he opposed any attempt to pursue negotiations after an election campaign begins.
"We need a big jump. Even if we got this, it doesn't mean that people will respond and vote the way you'd like them to vote and that you'd get the institutions up. But if we do not go in to an election with the parties subscribing to making it work on the other side of it, how do the pro-agreement parties sell that to the electorate?
"What are you asking them to vote for?" he said.
Mr Ahern said that he and Mr Blair agreed that the end of November was the latest possible date for an election this year and that both men were determined to make every possible effort to find an agreement during the coming days.
"When Tony Blair and I go home tomorrow, we're going to keep at it for the weekend. We've made up our minds to do that because it's our last weekend and we've only a few days left. Both of us feel that if we can't get it right by our Question Times on Wednesday, we're goosed," he said.
