Officials will attempt to find agreement next Wednesday on the structure of intensive talks designed to break the North's deadlock before the June 30th deadline set by the British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, the Taoiseach said yesterday.
The June 30th date comes just a few days before the climax of the Drumcree standoff, and as the marching season gets into full swing, Mr Ahern said.
"But whether that date is a great idea or not, it is the constructive date now and it is an important date and we are going to have to live by it and try to achieve all that we need to by it.
"The implementation of the agreement is stalled," he said on RTE Radio's Morning Ireland programme.
"People need to admit that and understand it. So therefore we need to try to set the two governments and the pro-agreement parties in an intensive round of discussions where we can try and bring it to a conclusion."
Decommissioning had to be confronted, he said, because "it's not going to go away."
A report from Gen John de Chastelain, the chairman of the International Commission on Decommissioning, was required before June 30th, "and we will have to follow what he says. Otherwise, we will never deal with this issue."
He agreed that Mr David Trimble faced difficulties within the unionist camp and praised what he called the "extraordinary leadership" Mr Trimble had shown in the past 18 months.
The two governments were prepared to work with Mr Trimble, and agreed that "I think he needs probably more help than most."
Later, the Taoiseach said that along with Mr Blair, he would be making an "enormous and intensive effort" to have an executive in place by the June 30th deadline. He was speaking at the final press conference in Dublin for Fianna Fail's two European election candidates, Mr Niall Andrews MEP and Mr Ben Briscoe TD.
He said that if the deadline was missed, a breakthrough could become difficult when the marching season began.
"We will help the parties in any way we can," he said.