The Taoiseach and the British Prime Minister will renew efforts in London today to break the impasse in the Northern Ireland talks. A spokesman for the Taoiseach last night said the Government has no intention of "parking" the Belfast Agreement until the autumn in the hope of progress on decommissioning.
Both governments remained determined to try "to bring the parties with them", the spokesman said. The Sinn Fein leader, Mr Gerry Adams, yesterday however called on the British government to establish the Assembly executive even if that leads to the collapse of the Belfast Agreement.
By implication, Mr Adams also opposes any "parking" of the agreement to buy time for possible progress. Mr Adams suggested it would be better to let the agreement collapse, and then start rebuilding it.
In contrast, the North's First Minster and UUP leader, Mr David Trimble, said yesterday he was confident current difficulties could be overcome, but he also opposed any postponement.
When Mr Ahern and Mr Blair meet delegations from Sinn Fein, the Ulster Unionist Party and the SDLP at Downing Street later to day, the "obligation" on paramilitaries to begin decommissioning and the need to salvage the Northern Ireland talks from the jaws of defeat will be uppermost in their minds.
The "immense difficulties" in reaching consensus on the implementation of the agreement and establishment of the executive - expressed by the Northern Ireland Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam, as recently as last week - were reiterated by Downing Street yesterday.
The Britsh government says it is "ready to listen" to the Northern parties and has now put the ball firmly back into their court by suggesting "it's up to the parties" to make progress and move the process forward.
Mr Blair's timetable for achieving any kind of breakthrough is limited, at least in the short term. The crisis in Kosovo means that after today's intensive discussions at Downing Street, the Prime Minister is scheduled to visit NATO headquarters in Brussels and British troops in Germany tomorrow.
Later this week he leaves for Chicago and Washington where he will discuss the conflict with NATO leaders during ceremonies to mark the 50th anniversary of the military alliance.
While the possibility that the Downing Street talks could continue tomorrow has not been ruled out, there are few signs that the discussions will provide more than a restatement of present positions.
Mr Adams insisted yesterday the agreement would be "dead" if the British and Irish governments continued to insist on some prior IRA decommissioning before the formation of an executive.
Mr Adams said: "I think the agreement is in free-fall, and I think the psychological moment was when the two governments came forward with the working draft paper at Hillsborough."
He continued: "The brake on progress came from the unionists. Once the governments moved to accept that the IRA had to do something on decommissioning before there could be progress, that brought the whole situation to a new pessimistic point.
"The two governments have done their best to move back from that position but they have not yet moved back on to the Good Friday agreement, so I have no confidence that they are going to trigger d'Hondt [set up the executive]," he said.
The onus was now on Mr Tony Blair to "trigger d'Hondt", even if that meant the collapse of the Belfast Agreement. Asked how such a move could assist the peace process, Mr Adams replied: "Because in rebuilding it, and we will have to rebuild the process if it falls, then we will all know the basis on which it fell, and from a republican position at the moment if it falls, it falls because the governments, and the British government particularly, have refused to honour their obligation.
"I don't want to be promulgating the gospel of despair but in seeking to move forward, we have to have a number of contingencies in mind and, if the agreement is now in free-fall and is going to collapse anyway, then we have to look at how it can be built up again."
Arguing for the rebuilding of it in circumstances where the governments had played a part in the collapse would not be an easy task for republicans, Mr Adams added. If the agreement collapsed, it would be because the UUP was demanding IRA decommissioning before the setting up of an executive, which was in contravention of the terms of the agreement.
Mr Adams repeated that it was not in Sinn Fein's gift to deliver IRA decommissioning. "Let's be very, very clear about all this. If the governments are saying there can be no implementation of the agreement, and no establishment of the institutions, until the IRA do something on decommissioning then not only are they outside the agreement, but the agreement is dead," he added. Mr Adams said there was a lot of "justifiable and righteous anger" among republicans and elements of nationalism at the cur rent logjam in the political process.
Though he expressed optimism, Mr Trimble told the BBC's Breakfast With Frost programme there could be no question of parking the agreement. "I think to mark time for months would be a very bad thing," he said.
Of today's Downing Street meeting, he said, "We are meeting to assess the situation and we will consider then what is best to do and I remain basically optimistic about the process as a whole.
"It is more robust than some people think and those who are talking the process down are not doing society any service," he added.
It also emerged yesterday that Mr Trimble could meet the Pope this week. If the London talks allow, the UUP leader hopes to be in Rome on Wednesday for a conference involving Nobel peace prize winners.
While such an encounter would be likely to infuriate members of the Orange Order, Mr Trimble was quite sanguine about the idea. "The possibility of a reception in the Vatican is there . . .but I would not be the first Orangeman to meet a Pope," he said.