The Taoiseach meets the North's First Minister, Mr David Trimble, in Dublin this morning in the wake of a Sinn Fein warning that failure to implement the Patten report will leave the Belfast Agreement "holed below the waterline".
After a 90-minute meeting with Mr Ahern in Dublin yesterday, the Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, said the British government had promised on May 5th to implement the Patten report on the reform of policing in the North. "It hasn't done that, it still has time to do it and it needs to do it."
Mr Ahern met Mr Adams yesterday in the first of a series of meetings on the peace process being held in advance of the political holiday season. With most political activity about to be effectively suspended until early September, Mr Ahern will review political progress with Mr Trimble at Government Buildings this morning, and will meet the British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, at Downing Street on Monday.
Amid continuing nationalist concern over the possible dilution of key Patten proposals, Mr Ahern will again press Mr Blair to implement as many as possible of the reforms important to nationalists. Mr Adams said what was currently being proposed was a "rejigged RUC by another name" rather than fundamental reform. Unless the Police Bill is strengthened before it passes through Westminster in the autumn, he warned, nationalists will not join the new police force.
He said the Belfast Agreement intended to create equality on all issues, including institutional matters, constitutional matters, human rights matters, political matters, policing matters and cultural matters. "If we have not a police service which can be democratic, can be accountable and can have the support of all sections of people on the island, then the agreement will have been holed below the water-line and the British government needs to be very conscious of that," he said. Mr Adams also expressed concern at the slow pace of reduction in the security force presence in the North.
Mr Adams also said Mr Ahern was sympathetic to the idea of representation of people in Northern Ireland in the Oireachtas. However, this was a matter for the All-Party Committee on the Constitution, which, he said, was examining the issue.
The policing issue will feature in Mr Ahern's discussions with Mr Trimble this morning. The two will also discuss details of the next meeting of the North-South Ministerial Council, which comprises all Cabinet Ministers and members of the Northern Ireland Executive. The first meeting took place in Armagh last December. The second meeting, due last month, was postponed because of the four-month suspension of the new political institutions, and it is now expected to take place in Dublin in September.