Sinn Féin's chief negotiator has urged the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, to put pressure on the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, to call Assembly elections for June. Gerry Moriarty, Northern Editor, reports.
As the British government publishes its Bill today postponing the May 29th elections until the autumn at the earliest, Mr Martin McGuinness called on Mr Ahern to "push the British government" to reschedule the elections for next month.
The British government is expected to compensate the political parties for their election expenditure. It is also expected to continue paying the Assembly's 108 members at least half of their individual salaries, around £20,000.
The Northern Secretary, Mr Paul Murphy, is also travelling to the US next week to meet American politicians and to brief Irish-America on why the elections were postponed and why this latest attempt to achieve a final political breakthrough collapsed.
Mr McGuinness meanwhile said he wanted to respond to Mr Ahern's comments in the Dáil on Wednesday that it was a "great pity" that the IRA endorsement of Mr Gerry Adams's clarifications of its statement of April 13th had not come earlier.
Mr Ahern said while a direct linkage between the clarifications and the IRA statement issued on Tuesday would have been helpful had it come earlier, it need not necessarily have been decisive. Mr McGuinness characterised Mr Ahern's comment as a full endorsement of the IRA statement that accompanied the April 13th statement.
"If that statement was the basis for forward movement last week, then logically it is the basis for forward movement this week," he said.
British and Irish sources, however, conceded that elections would not take place this summer. One Dublin source described Sinn Féin demands for June elections as "wishful thinking".
Mr McGuinness also warned of the hazards of a political vacuum. "There is a real danger that the agenda will be set by people who are not well disposed to the peace process and who in fact want to see the destruction of the peace process and the Good Friday agreement. That should not be allowed," he said.
"The best way to counter the activities of these people is to again put the politicians in the predominant position that they need to be in, effectively setting the pace and dictating the agenda, and effectively making politics work," added Mr McGuinness. Mr McGuinness also addressed the argument that the governments believed that the IRA statements could not convince a majority of unionists to vote for pro-Belfast Agreement unionists, and without such support the agreement could topple. "What was offered [by republicans] as a result of the deliberations in the course of recent weeks and months was a very powerful package," he said.
"How David Trimble could not have seized that and moved forward is beyond me. The two governments should have encouraged David Trimble to go down the road of the elections. And David Trimble should have gone into the elections embracing and promoting the Good Friday agreement." The SDLP leader, Mr Mark Durkan, told political parties in Dublin yesterday that it was imperative that politics keep moving forward and that the governments drive ahead with implementing the Joint Declaration.
A senior Cabinet minister said that the IRA statement had left open the possibility that it would remain an active force until a united Ireland was created. The Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Mr Dermot Ahern was speaking during a special debate on Northern Ireland in the Senate.
"Specifically, we needed clarity regarding the circumstances in which the IRA would bring complete and final closure of the conflict," said the Minister, who represents the Louth constituency. "For example, was this in the context of a united Ireland or in the context of full implementation of the Good Friday Agreement and other commitments? "This is an important distinction which was not at all clear from the IRA statement. We also needed clarity as to whether it was the IRA's intention to put all arms beyond use," he told senators.
