The Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, has expressed confidence that the Northern Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam, will trigger the d'Hondt mechanism allowing for the establishment of the new executive at the end of the month.
He made it clear that he was speaking in the context of no prior decommissioning of IRA weapons.
After meeting the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, for 45 minutes at Dublin Airport yesterday, Mr Adams also told journalists he had protested to Downing Street and the British Home Office over the decision of the Home Secretary, Mr Jack Straw, to seek a judicial review in the High Court designed to block the release of four IRA prisoners.
Mr Straw's decision had been "most unhelpful" and reminiscent of events under the former prime minister, Mr John Major. It was "vindictive, petty and totally at odds" with the official attitude to Private Lee Clegg, the British soldier whose murder conviction was recently reduced to a lesser crime.
These men due for release had already done "big time", up to 15 years' imprisonment in "bestial conditions, including solitary confinement". The Taoiseach had told him he was seeking clarification on the Home Office intervention.
"I also stressed and echoed the Taoiseach's assertion that the inquiry into Rosemary Nelson's killing needs to be independent and international. The inquiry proposed is totally unacceptable", Mr Adams added. In Washington, he had been struck by the impact the Lurgan solicitor had made when she visited the city.
Urging the governments to unite around the implementation of the Belfast Agreement, he said it was necessary to see the activation of the d'Hondt system which Dr Mowlam said should be done by the new deadline of the week beginning March 29th.
The possibility existed that the Northern Secretary would come "under pressure" as the deadline approached. But, on balance, he took the view that she was going to trigger d'Hondt this time.
Pressed on the prospects for IRA decommissioning, Mr Adams said he did not know how he could make himself any clearer.
"The absolutist demands cannot be delivered by this Sinn Fein leadership", he added.
People were very sadly mistaken if they thought the Sinn Fein leadership was engaged in some tactical trick or negotiation.
To raise the question repeatedly would lead one to believe there was no international decommissioning body, that Gen John de Chastelain did not exist, that there was no Good Friday agreement and that Mr David Trimble did not sign up to it.
He had no idea what the Minister of State, Ms Liz O'Donnell, meant when she spoke on Monday of the possibility of "a synchronised compromise" in reaching agreement by the latest deadline.
"We synchronised and compromised on Good Friday", Mr Adams added.