Taoiseach feels parties are moving towards North deal

After two days of intensive lobbying at the highest level in Washington, the Taoiseach now feels that all the parties want a deal to be done on Northern Ireland.

As he left Washington yesterday, Mr Ahern said everybody had to move from their stated positions in the negotiations. "Encouragingly, nobody is saying that they won't. Nobody is saying very strongly that they will either. But, if you read the body language and listen between the questions that have been asked, everybody knows what they have to do."

With the next move in the negotiations seen to rest with the unionists on North/South bodies, Mr Ahern was implicitly critical of the way the Ulster Unionist Party leader, Mr David Trimble, was handling the negotiations.

It had been made clear to Mr Trimble what the key elements of an agreement were. "How we propose to deal with it is obviously being played differently by different people. I think it is a very risky strategy to play all one's cards so close to your chest that you get up one morning and you throw all on the table and you say `done deal', rather than being open and even-handed with everyone you are playing with."

In his view, Mr Trimble knew precisely what was meant by North/South bodies. That had been explained to him by greater people than him - the US President, the US Vice President and the British Prime Minister. He knew what had to happen if there was to be an agreement.

However, Mr Trimble last night reiterated there could be no meeting with the Sinn Fein leader, Mr Gerry Adams, because of what he claimed was republicans' refusal to accept the principle of consent. Despite Mr Clinton's efforts to persuade Mr Trimble to talk directly to Mr Adams, the UUP leader last night said the US administration should not trust Sinn Fein. The President, he said, understood his position.

Responding last night, the Sinn Fein chairman, Mr Mitchel McLaughlin, said there would be no possibility of reaching a settlement without Sinn Fein. He accused Mr Trimble of misreading the mood of his own party.

Asked yesterday about Fianna Fail criticism of the proposed changes in Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, Mr Ahern said the Fianna Fail position for over two decades was that there would be constitutional change as part of "a final settlement".

"That is the way we stood on it over the last nine general elections so anybody in the Oireachtas today got elected on that basis," he said.