Government officials will work over the weekend on proposals to be put to the British Prime Minister next Tuesday for the implementation of substantial parts of the Joint Declaration by the two governments, despite the failure to reach political agreement this week.
The Taoiseach and Ministers for Foreign Affairs and Justice will finalise their position before Mr Blair meets them at Farmleigh House in Dublin on Tuesday afternoon to discuss how to avoid a political vacuum between now and the Assembly elections, now postponed until autumn.
The British government has indicated it is open to the implementation of some aspects of the Joint Declaration.
Concern to avoid a political vacuum has been heightened by yesterday's bitter attack by the Sinn Féin president, Mr Gerry Adams, on the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell.
Mr Adams yesterday angrily rejected Mr McDowell's assertion that the Government's role in the political process was to act as "an honest broker" in talks.
"The Irish Government is a co-partner with the British government in an international treaty and has a primary responsibility to implement that treaty," he said on RTÉ's News At One.
He said the Government also had a responsibility "to defend and promote Irish national interests and rights, and that means particularly at this time the rights of Irish citizens in the North".
He said that in the light of Mr McDowell's claim that the Government was merely an honest broker.
"I have no confidence in him as a negotiator", Mr Adams said.
He added that some of Mr McDowell's comments in recent media interviews made former Fine Gael leader Mr John Bruton sound like Padraig Pearse.
Mr McDowell later declined to respond, saying Mr Adams remarks may have been "the product of tiredness".
When it was put to him earlier that republicans felt betrayed by the Government, he said this could not be the case.
"We have done our level best to bring about a situation in which the acts of completion which were required by the two prime ministers in their statement last November.
"We have put a huge amount of effort into mapping the way forward."