Mr David Trimble's year-long tenure as Northern Ireland First Minister is set to end at midnight tonight as one of his leading allies is poised to take over in a caretaker capacity.
Sir Reg Empey will not take the title, salary or trappings of the office, due to be vacated as the IRA fails to disarm within the deadline imposed by Mr Trimble, but his appointment will allow meetings of the power-sharing executive set up under the Belfast Agreement to continue.
Sinn Fein president Mr Gerry Adams said today the Ulster Unionist leader's "kamikaze politics" were not going to achieve his objective of IRA decommissioning.
The anticipated resignation of Mr Trimble, who travelled to northern France today for tomorrow's 85th anniversary of the Somme commemoration, will trigger an intensive period of negotiations.
There is a six-week "breathing space" for Mr Trimble either to be reinstalled or replaced before the North’s devolved government collapses.
A new round of negotiations begins next week, initially managed by Northern Ireland Secretary Dr John Reid, but the Taoiseach Mr Ahern and British Prime Minister Tony Blair are expected to get involved the following week.
With the tensions surrounding the loyalist marching season due to peak at Drumcree next weekend, the Taoiseach warned against allowing a political vacuum to develop during the "worst two weeks of the year".
Northern Ireland Enterprise, Trade and Investment Minister Sir Reg insisted today that Ulster Unionists would not return to government with Sinn Fein without IRA arms decommissioning.
He told BBC Radio Ulsterhis appointment was "a sticking plaster solution to allow time for negotiation".
Mr Adams, signing books in Dublin, said: "I don't want to see the institutions slipping but it isn't within my gift to prevent them if kamikaze politics is what is determining the Unionist approach to all this."
He said Mr Trimble had two objectives - devolution and decommissioning - adding: "It is obvious he isn't going to get decommissioning the way he is going for it and he mightn't even get devolution."
The onus was on Mr Blair to safeguard the agreement and he should not be "satisfied to be involved in ad hoc crisis management".
Dr Reid, who travelled with Mr Trimble to France, pledged that efforts would continue to try to keep political institutions afloat.
Mr Ahern said Minister for Foreign Affairs Mr Brian Cowen would meet Dr Reid next week and added: "We are trying to build ourselves into a negotiating position. To allow a vacuum to develop at this time of year would make it more difficult."
Meanwhile, Canadian General John de Chastelain is due to present his latest report on weapons decommissioning to the British Government this weekend, with its publication due to follow early next week.
Ulster Unionist Lagan Valley MP Mr Jeffrey Donaldson, a vocal critic of Mr Trimble's strategy until now, gave a gloomy forecast of the report and said he did not expect "any significant progress".
PA