The Taoiseach has signalled that the deadlock over arms decommissioning seems set to continue until next spring, with February now the "crunch time" for the creation of the "full" Northern Ireland executive.
Mr Ahern confirmed this gloomy assessment in Edinburgh last night, while insisting that momentum in the peace process be maintained, particularly in respect of early agreement on areas for North-South co-operation, and the proposed six Implementation Bodies.
Following his weekend talks with Mr Tony Blair in Austria, Mr Ahern's comments strengthened the impression that the two governments have been forced to revise their interpretation of the requirements of the Belfast Agreement in respect of the October 31st "deadline". The belief is also growing that London and Dublin - forced to buy time, given the failure to resolve the decommissioning issue - are now looking to the creation of the executive proper at the point at which powers are scheduled to be transferred to the Assembly, rather than to its early establishment in "shadow" form.
After last night's reception to mark the opening of the Irish Consulate in Edinburgh, Mr Ahern told The Irish Times and RTE that failure to resolve the executive and decommissioning issues should not prevent agreement on six implementation bodies by, or close to, tomorrow's deadline.
Asked during his RTE interview if the decommissioning issue had been effectively parked, the Taoiseach said: "The situation I think on decommissioning is that it's parked for some months, probably in the springtime...it's not the ideal resolution of this." The Taoiseach accepted that Mr David Trimble's position was, as stated, that "he's not going to the full executive until something happens on decommissioning". He asserted that that should not stand in the way of agreement on North-South issues "so that they're all prepared and ready, so that when we come to the decision on the full executive in February, which I think will be the crunch time, that we will not have lost any important time".
Mr Ahern also repeated his view that - given movement taking place on a number of fronts, including prisoner releases, troop withdrawals, the dismantling of security installations and the Patten Commission on the future of policing in the North - "I do not feel we can avoid the decommissioning issue for a long time".
Mr Ahern later indicated that, given the scale of mutual distrust between unionists and republicans, time was needed to build momentum by other means in the hope of resolving the key issues.