The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, has said he would wait until March before reviving formal negotiations on the proposed European constitution.
Mr Ahern said he would report to the next EU summit in March about progress in bilateral contacts with member states before recommending when the EU leaders should meet again to take up the draft constitution.
Mr Ahern made his comments as efforts to forge a landmark constitution for Europe failed after a major stand-off in Brussels over the share-out of power.
Speaking to reporters, Mr Ahern said he did not sense "people are waiting for the first of January," when Ireland assumes the presidency, "to get back into" the negotiations.
Earlier, Anne Anderson, Ireland's ambassador to the EU said Ireland was ready, if necessary, to use the presidency to take over responsibility for sorting out the European constitution.
Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, the summit host, called a halt when it became clear he couldn't break the deadlock over voting rights.
Despite the loss of face, all EU leaders agreed to abandon attempts to agree historic changes in the way the EU does business.
The aim was to streamline decision-making to avoid bureaucratic and political gridlock when ten more countries join next May.
However, the Polish prime minister Leszek Miller refused to consider voting changes in the proposed constitution which would weaken the generous voting power Poland gained in its EU entry terms.
Many issues could have tripped up the summiteers, but the real stumbling block was always going to be the voting dispute involving Poland and Spain on the one side and Germany and France on the other.
Warsaw and Madrid insisted on keeping their current voting strength around the EU policy-making table - 27 votes each, in countries with populations of about 40 million each.
But Germany and France, both with double the population but only two votes more each, were equally insistent on effectively reducing Spanish and Polish clout in future, as set out in the constitution.
Today there was no sign of any concession from the Spanish and Polish leaders, with French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder equally tough in insisting that any deal reflected their greater EU muscle.
Last night President Chirac increased the tension, effectively accusing the Poles of abusing their position as a new EU member - one not even joining until next May - by trying to wring unrealistic terms out of the constitution.
The Italian prime Minister had spent yesterday and much of today shuttling between various groups of countries, trying to find compromise.
But by lunch-time it was looking impossible, and the only question was how to dress up failure after a two-year search for a constitution designed to last for decades.
The outcome may be a public relations disaster, but even if a deal had been done, the new constitution would not come into force until 2007 at the earliest - and some parts of it not until much later.
With European Parliament elections looming and a new Commission being installed late next year, there is little appetite for a rush to pick up the constitution pieces. It is now up to Ireland, which takes over the EU presidency for six months on January 1, to decide what to do.