The Taoiseach and the British Prime Minister both insisted that considerable progress had been made by the time they left Hillsborough Castle at lunchtime yesterday for the Dail and the House of Commons respectively. Both Mr Ahern and Mr Blair returned to Hillsborough yesterday evening to resume the negotiations.
Mr Blair said: "We believe there has been good progress made here, but there is still more to do. If that progress can be made, we stand ready to return and take these discussions to a successful conclusion. Everyone wants this agreement to work. We need to get the details firmed up during the day."
Mr Ahern said that since Monday afternoon considerable progress had been achieved.
"I think we have moved and cleared understandings of where we could find resolutions" on the outstanding issues, he said. The discussions had been cordial and workmanlike. "Hopefully we can see them through".
Mr Blair said that no one in the negotiations would be forgiven if an agreement was not achieved.
"I think we can make it happen, but it does require a real sense of goodwill, a real sense of urgency and above all a sense of fundamental responsibility to people here in Northern Ireland to provide them with the future they need," he said.
Mr Ahern said it would be "terrible" if agreement was not reached as current difficulties hinged on one point, "and that difference is down to timing and dates. Surely we should not lose out because two of the parties cannot agree on times and dates?"
Mr Blair said good progress had been achieved, "but there is still more to do." He said it was clear that "everyone wants this agreement to work, everyone accepts that every part of the agreement has to be made to work." "The how and the when" now had to be agreed between the parties.
Mr Blair encouraged the parties to "redouble their efforts and understand their obligations" to solve the decommissioning dispute. He urged the parties to live up to their responsibilities to the people of Northern Ireland and said there was no reason why this could not be done.
He added: "The people of Northern Ireland will not forgive us if we do not get this sorted out."
The North's Deputy First Minister, Mr Seamus Mallon, who remained at Hillsborough through out the day, said there was potential for the decommissioning issue to be solved and urged the parties to stand on their own feet as a political process and solve the dispute without outside help.
He urged the politicians to continue talking. "We simply cannot leave this hanging in the air. It is crucially important that it is resolved and resolved quickly," he said.
"We have got to get ourselves to the stage tonight where we know we are capable of standing on our own feet."
The SDLP leader, Mr John Hume, said the IRA Easter statement confirmed that the avenue for a lasting peace in Northern Ireland was through the Belfast Agreement. The most important thing was that the guns were silent, he added.
The Sinn Fein chairman, Mr Mitchel McLaughlin, said at lunchtime that the future of the peace process was critically in the balance. If the current negotiations collapsed, "the No camp would take great encouragement and it would be a virtual incentive to them to step up the pressure on the Unionist Party leadership," he said.
Mr McLaughlin welcomed the IRA's Easter statement, which he described as positive and constructive. "This is another example of political leadership on the part of Oglaigh na hEireann and I think we should all welcome that."
Arriving at Hillsborough Castle for the talks yesterday morning, Mr McLaughlin had warned that with the loyalist marching season due to begin on Monday, the parties should not allow a political vacuum to develop over the coming weeks.
"I think all of the portents of this year's marching season are even more difficult, so I think there is a real deadline as far as these talks are concerned.
"And I very much hope that we can get an agreement to form an executive and demonstrate to the entire community, including those who are looking to this year's marching season as an opportunity to destroy the entire agreement, that there is an alternative and there is a shared acceptance by unionism, nationalism and republicanism that we will see this through together."