The Taoiseach Mr Ahern has urged the British Prime Minister Mr Tony Blair not to create an "unnecessary crisis" by accepting unionist demands for Sinn Féin to be thrown out of government in Northern Ireland.
Mr Blair is due to respond to unionist demands in a major statement on the state of the IRA ceasefire before the House of Commons rises for the summer recess next Wednesday.
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Hardliner UUP and DUP members want Sinn Féin ministers Mr Martin McGuinness and Ms Bairbre de Brun to be removed from government because of what they see as ongoing IRA activity.
Such a move could swiftly collapse the devolved administration in Belfast and Mr Ahern said: "I think whatever Tony Blair says next week should be about keeping things going, in my view, and keeping things successfully going but warning people that we do not want any violence."
Asked by reporters during a visit to Co Meath whether Sinn Féin should be excluded from the Stormont executive, Mr Ahern said: "No I do not. The important thing is that we continue to keep the institutions in place and to work our way through whatever difficulties are there.
"I do not accept or believe that the institutions are doing other than a good job - there are always tensions and difficulties."
There had been problems on the streets in recent weeks, he said, but added: "The Assembly is working well, the Executive is working well, the North-South bodies are working well, the British-Irish Council is working well.
"The one thing that we should not do is create a crisis - an unnecessary crisis - and while there are difficulties and some tensions I think they will be there for a generation and what we need to do is manage things as they go."
Drawing a comparison between the trouble in Northern Ireland and his own part of the island, he added: "If there was a problem in some part of Dublin with policing I hope we would not find the resolution of that would be to disband Dail Eireann or to do away with the Government so therefore I do not for one second see the logic when people say we should do away with the Executive."
But the unionist demands continued today. Mr Nigel Dodds, the Democratic Unionist MP for North Belfast - and a minister in the power-sharing Stormont Executive - said the activities of the republican movement in recent weeks made it clear the IRA ceasefire was a sham.
"The Secretary of State must therefore take action against Sinn Féin and move to exclude them from their ministerial posts."
Like other hardline unionists he accused the IRA of still obtaining weapons, orchestrating the recent violence on the streets of Belfast, training and targeting.
Despite this week's IRA apology for the deaths of the hundreds of civilians it killed during 30 years of violence, Mr Dodds said: "No half-hearted apologies should be used as another excuse to buy Sinn Féin more time in the Executive."