The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, will tonight raise with Sinn Féin's chief negotiator, Mr Martin McGuinness, his concerns about how last Friday's alleged IRA abduction of republican dissident Mr Bobby Tohill has thrown the political process into turmoil.
He will make his views known to Mr McGuinness after the future of the review of the Belfast Agreement was last night placed in jeopardy following a day of heated exchanges between the unionist and Alliance parties and the British and Irish governments over the attack on Mr Tohill.
At Stormont yesterday the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, and the Northern Secretary, Mr Paul Murphy, to the fury of the DUP, Ulster Unionists and Alliance, refused to impose sanctions against Sinn Féin or exclude the party from the review.
Mr Murphy said he and Mr Cowen were at one in viewing the alleged IRA attack on Mr Tohill in city centre Belfast on Friday as a "very serious breach" of paragraph 13 of the Hillsborough joint declaration which requires paramilitaries to cease activity.
The DUP, UUP and Alliance were dismissive of the governments' attempts to deal with the fallout from Friday's incident and made their opinions known in very "angry" terms, according to official and party sources. Mr Cowen and Mr Murphy referred the issue to the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC). They also said that the IMC would report on the Tohill incident in May rather than in June or July, when it was next due to report on the extent of continuing paramilitary activity.
The governments also decided that ending paramilitarism must now top the agenda of future review meetings. "It is time for people to sit down, to talk turkey and sort it out," added Mr Cowen. The Taoiseach's spokeswoman said last night that Mr Ahern would raise the issue when he meets a Sinn Féin delegation led by Mr McGuinness in Dublin tonight.These Dublin and London moves, however, have failed to placate the unionist and Alliance parties.
The DUP, UUP and Alliance would not be specific but indicated that they could boycott the review if firmer action was not taken against Sinn Féin. The DUP leader, the Rev Ian Paisley, said of his meeting with Mr Cowen and Mr Murphy, "I left that meeting utterly sick at the weaklings sitting at the table and scraping and crawling to get some excuse why the IRA is not held to account." He called on the other parties to join with the DUP in demanding sanctions against Sinn Féin. "If sanctions are not taken against IRA/Sinn Féin then these talks are falling," he added.
The SDLP leader, Mr Mark Durkan, said it was clear republican and loyalist activity could no longer be "ignored, evaded or sidestepped". Mr McGuinness said that in his meeting with Mr Cowen and Mr Murphy he raised his concerns about elements of the PSNI and British system pursuing an "anti-Sinn Féin and anti-peace process agenda".
