The impeachment or resignation of President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair would be "an enormous setback" for the peace process, the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, said here last night.
"From a purely Irish perspective, it would be a huge setback, an enormous setback, and it would be very bad for Ireland," Mr Ahern said in an interview with The Irish Times before returning to Dublin from a five-day tour of China.
The Taoiseach is convinced that the next US president, should Mr Clinton go, even if it was the current Vice-President, Mr Al Gore, who has been peripherally involved in the Northern Ireland peace process, would not give anything like the same priority to Northern Ireland.
Mr Ahern recalled visiting the United States in the 1980s when the reality was that the administration, particularly the State Department, had little or no interest in Northern Ireland. "Every other part of the world was important, and we certainly were at the bottom of the pile," he said.
"I've been back as leader of the opposition during the time of John Bruton's government and now as Taoiseach and I think the fact of the matter is Northern Ireland is now up there at the top of the agenda."
He had no doubt that if President Clinton left the White House, "we would go right down the agenda again." In the normal course of events it would be a long time before they got a US president again who had Ireland so high on the agenda. "For that reason, and it is a selfish reason, apart from the fact that I personally have great regard and respect for President Clinton, it would be very bad for Ireland."
Asked about his views on Mr Chris Patten, the former governor of Hong Kong who is now preparing a report on the RUC, the Taoiseach said the result of his work would be a crucial aspect in ensuring there was no return to violence in Northern Ireland.
He believed Mr Patten to be a man of high credibility who was very committed to Northern Ireland and had kept up his contacts over the years since he served in the Northern Ireland Office as a Conservative junior minister.
"I had a lengthy discussion with him this day week, and he has set out a very intensive programme for the winter and is already meeting various people from the police to civil rights groups," Mr Ahern said.
He found that Mr Patten had already read and studied all the reports submitted by parties to the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation and as part of the talks process on Northern Ireland.
"He's doing a `roadshow' between now and Christmas which is bringing him into community halls and parish halls in Northern Ireland where he's going to listen to people with the choice of expressing their views, and they're going to look at policing arrangements in different situations in other countries after Christmas," the Taoiseach said.
"Nobody who is dealing with Northern Ireland should underestimate the importance of the policing report in terms of the entire policy agenda." This was part of the human rights aspect of the programme which had not the same profile as other parts of the Belfast Agreement, he said in a clear reference to the decommissioning issue.
"These ultimately are the crucial aspects that will remove us from the dreadful path of troubles and difficulties we had in the last 30 years," he said.