The Sinn Féin president, Mr Gerry Adams, has strongly implied that Mr David Trimble was correct to seek the removal of three dissident MPs from the Ulster Unionist Party.
As Mr Trimble moved to expel Mr Jeffrey Donaldson, the Rev Martin Smyth and Mr David Burnside from the party, Mr Adams said: "Any comment by the likes of me" on the internal situation in the Ulster Unionists would not be helpful.
However, he added: "I think Mr Trimble has outlined recently what he wants to do. I think any party leader faced with this dilemma could not do but what he has outlined he intends to do." The Sinn Féin leader was speaking in Dublin after a meeting in Government Buildings with the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern. He praised the conduct of the Special Olympics before talking about the political situation.
Calling again for the Assembly elections to be held, he said Mr Ahern agreed with him on this point. Mr Adams blamed the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, for blocking progress. "For some time people blamed the unionists; now people are blaming Mr Blair and I think that's one of the core difficulties."
On a meeting next Tuesday between Mr Ahern and Mr Blair, he said: "What I would like to see coming out of that meeting is a definitive unconditional unqualified assertion that the election is going to go ahead." Such elections would provide anchorage, he said, restoring a centre of gravity to the political process.
Mr Adams said voters should not have to wait for elections until the problems in unionism were resolved. "Unionism is in crisis. It would be better if it wasn't, but it is. But we can't wait."
Referring to anti-agreement unionists he said: "If they want devolution and they say they do, the price for that is all-Ireland institutions. There's no other way they're getting devolution, except in those terms."