The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, is to donate his half of a $75,000 justice and human rights award shared with the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, to three Irish charities, his spokeswoman said yesterday. Conor O'Clery reports from Storrs, Connecticut.
Mr Ahern used the occasion of the presentation of the award at the University of Connecticut to appeal to the parties in Northern Ireland.
He said that the time had come "to rise to the challenge, to provide the leadership, to stretch their communities and take the decisions they know must be taken" to enable elections to take place.
The award is the first Dodd Prize in International Justice and Human Rights, named after former Senator Thomas Dodd, father of Senator Christopher Dodd, who presided at the ceremony.
It was accepted by Mr Ahern and the British Deputy Prime Minister, Mr John Prescott, standing in for Mr Blair, at an open-air ceremony on the campus at Storrs, Connecticut.
Mr Blair has declined under British government rules, however, to take his share of the prize-money, and is leaving it to the university to decide what to do with the money.
Speaking at the campus, Mr Ahern emphasised that "the republican movement must make it clear in a way that convinces unionists and all of us that paramilitary activity, as previously set out by both governments, is at an end.
"At the same time, unionists must reassure nationalists that they are fully committed to the Good Friday institutions and that they participate in a full and sustained way."
Mr Prescott said that the symbol of a peaceful future in Northern Ireland was, for him, a little boy injured in the Omagh bombing who had awakened from a coma long enough to ask him how the Liverpool team had done the previous day.
Mr Prescott recalled that he arranged to take the boy to see Liverpool play when he recovered and he had been warmly welcomed by the team and the spectators.
Senator Dodd later presented Mr Ahern and Mr Prescott with busts of his father, who as a lawyer fought against organised crime.