No significant advance in the debate on policing is expected from today's meeting in London between the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, and the British Prime Minister, Mr Blair. Outstanding differences between the two governments over the Police (Northern Ireland) Bill - and the growing threat from dissident republicans to the peace process - are expected to dominate the Downing Street talks, scheduled to last some 90 minutes.
However, a Downing Street spokesman last night said "nothing big" should be expected from the pre-holiday "stocktaking" by the two leaders.
Specifically there appears to be little likelihood Mr Blair will indicate his final decision on whether the Police Bill should be further amended - as originally promised to Dublin and the SDLP - to define the precise "operational purposes" of the title of the newly named Police Service of Northern Ireland.
The Northern Ireland Secretary, Mr Peter Mandelson, withdrew the proposed amendment in the final hours of the Third Reading debate on the Bill on July 11th, following direct talks between Mr Blair and Northern Ireland's First Minister, Mr David Trimble.
That decision prompted a charge of "political chicanery" from the Deputy First Minister, Mr Seamus Mallon, and led the SDLP's three MPs to abstain on the Third Reading of the Bill, despite having voted for it at Second Reading.
However, ahead of today's meeting - and amid signs of mounting British anger at the failure so far of the SDLP and the Irish Government to endorse the new police service - one British source said: "We need a greater sense of perspective on all of this.
"We're not saying we won't continue to discuss problems people may have. But there is a feeling that we've done an awful lot on Patten, and that some recognition of how much we've done would not go amiss."
The source also defended the withdrawal of the Mandelson amendment in the context of Mr Trimble's still shaky grip on his Ulster Unionist Party.
"We're very aware that it was just 53 per cent (at the Ulster Unionist Council) and that David Trimble's position remains delicate. We've made massive changes to the original Bill but also recognise that a balance has to be struck.
"For both sides our view would be `let's not rub people's noses in it.' "
The depth of Whitehall anger at continuing charges that the Patten Commission's proposals have not been faithfully implemented was underlined on Saturday by the public intervention in the debate by the British Ambassador to Ireland, Sir Ivor Roberts, in an article in The Irish Times.
The Police (Northern Ireland) Bill will begin its Committee Stage in the Lords in September.
The president of Sinn Fein, Mr Gerry Adams, said there was still time for the British government to make the changes necessary which would "bring them back into line with what Patten recommended. "But it seems to me that the problem is, at the moment, that the system, the officials, the people who ran this place for a very long time are back in the ascendancy and it is they who are providing the engine for resisting the type of changes which the Patten Report recommended, and I think that Peter Mandelson is very much their man."
Speaking on RTE radio, Mr Adams called for the release of the prisoners convicted of the killing of Det Garda Gerry McCabe.
He said that while he was "terribly mindful" of the suffering of Garda McCabe's family and colleagues, these prisoners did qualify for release under the Good Friday agreement.
"I have also asked the Irish Government to review its position on that."
However, the chairman of the PDs, Cllr John Minihan, said his party would not support any call for the early release of those prisoners, saying they did not come under the terms of the agreement.