The Taoiseach expressed the hope there would be a further inspection of IRA arms dumps soon.

Mr Ahern said the agreement worked out to allow the Northern Executive be reinstated provided for the inspection of arms dumps to reinforce confidence in the process. "I hope that the next round of that can happen as soon as possible."

He told the Labour leader, Mr Ruairi Quinn, he was not too sure he could claim to have exerted any influence on the IRA, but he hoped he had some on Sinn Fein. He had emphasised, he said, that moving on with a rechecking of the June inspections, and having further inspections, would be something he would welcome and would be helpful.

Mr Ahern said his officials were having talks in London to try to resolve the other outstanding issues. "There are not many of them now, but they are very important to both communities, and not easily resolved. They are not holding anything up but they do feed in to a lack of confidence."

He said the Government was continuing to put enormous resources to try to do its utmost to eliminate the threat from paramilitary dissidents. "But, like in all of these things, that is not easy. The gardai do all they possibly can, and so do the other police services." Mr Ahern said the loyalist violence was extremely destructive.

Mr Caoimhghin O Caolain (SF, Cavan-Monaghan) said policing was a core issue that had to be resolved and he was concerned about the statement from the North's First Minister, Mr David Trimble, calling for a rowing back of the British government's policing legislation due before the House of Lords later this month.

"Does the Taoiseach agree that the Patten report and its recommendations are a compromise based on a broad view of the policing issue and is not a programme of concessions to nationalists?" Mr O Caolain also asked if the Taoiseach agreed the issue was bigger than the political fortunes of any one leader.

Mr Ahern said he had already stated that the full implementation of the Patten report provided the best opportunity for a new beginning to policing in Northern Ireland.

The Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton, said that if the one individual referred to, Mr Trimble, were overthrown, there would be no Executive. "Under the agreement, Martin McGuinness ceases to be Minister for Education, Seamus Mallon ceases to be Deputy First Minister, because that is the way the agreement has been framed."

They were not talking about the fate on one individual out of some sympathetic concern for that person, said Mr Bruton. "We are talking about whether unionism is willing to support, through David Trimble, the continuance of the agreement, and that we, as nationalists in this House, have a huge historic responsibility, at this stage in history, to make sure that we are not looking back two months from now and saying if only we had said that, or if only such a concession might have been made, the Executive might still be in being . . . "

Mr Bruton said it was very important that all nationalists, whether they be Fine Gael, Sinn Fein, Fianna Fail, or SDLP, "bend every sinew of their bodies, politically speaking, every element of their imagination", to ensuring the unionist community recognised that the agreement was for them, too, and that Mr Trimble was given the political help he needed to survive. "This is a moment of decision for us as nationalists in this House."

Mr Ahern said he did not want to get into the issue of whether the Belfast Agreement was bigger than one person or not. "The agreement is supported by the people, and for that reason it has to be implemented." Compromises had to be made, he said.

Mr Joe Higgins (Socialist Party, Dublin West) asked if the Taoiseach was saying quite clearly that, in the event of an election yielding a situation where Sinn Fein and Fianna Fail could form a government, he would not participate unless the IRA had been disbanded.

Mr Ahern replied that he had made his position clear. "There is a constitution in this country which states that there can be only one police, one defence service, and there cannot be two. It is as simple as that. My party faced that position a long, long time ago. I think it is unambiguous."