The Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton, yesterday called on the IRA to say when it was going to decommission arms if it was not prepared to do so in advance of the publication of Gen de Chastelain's report today.
"When exactly and in what conditions are the IRA prepared to decommission? That question has to be asked and has to be answered," he said.
Mr Bruton said if the IRA gave satisfactory answers the pressure could ease in the decommissioning crisis. "But as long as that is left hanging there, there will be this unhealthy focus on decommissioning," Mr Bruton told RTE Radio's This Week. "How and when is the IRA going to respond? That is the question that has to be answered in the next 24 hours."
Mr Bruton said once the general's report was delivered today the two governments must act together to lay down what the standards of democracy were.
Meanwhile, the Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister, Mr Seamus Mallon, said there would not be progress if the Ulster Unionist Party took a unilateral decision on decommissioning or if the institutions were suspended.
He said it was important to remember there were more people than the UUP involved in the process and more than one government. "There are two sovereign governments involved. I believe there will be a great reluctance to suspend the institutions and that reluctance will be shown by the two governments and the UUP," he added.
Mr Mallon said three options were open to Gen de Chastelain. A favourable report, which no one expected , a negative report which would lead to problems and thirdly as positive a report as possible.
"I understand it may have some positive elements accompanied by some type of timeframe. If that third type of report is made by the general then I suspect people will work to use that to build on," he told RTE.
The Northern Ireland Minister of Education, Mr Martin McGuinness, of Sinn Fein, said it was important that everyone when considering these matters understood there was an agreement, the Good Friday agreement.
Mr McGuinness said the agreement was very clear and placed responsibility for progress on all the political parties. Saying that Sinn Fein should singularly deal with this issue is wrong, he added.
"I would maintain that the Sinn Fein leadership over the last nine years has done much more than any of the other parties in an attempt to resolve conflict."
He accused Mr David Trimble of moving the goalposts, breaking through deadlines, and holding up the formation of the Executive. "Now he is threatening to collapse the institutions and change the rules on decommissioning. That is crazy."
Asked if the IRA was going to play its part in decommissioning Mr McGuinness said: "That is a matter for Gen de Chastelain and the IRA.
"We have just come out of a review with Senator Mitchell and we agreed that the issue of decommissioning be handed back to the general where it should have been in the first place."
If the agreement collapsed, it would not be because of decommissioning but because the unionist leadership was not prepared to accept the type of changes proposed, he said.