SDLP leader Mr Mark Durkan has told the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Ahern, that there must be no dilution of the Belfast Agreement to meet the demands of the DUP on ministerial accountability in a restored Northern executive.
Mr Durkan said a party delegation had had a "good and constructive" first meeting with Mr Ahern in Dundalk yesterday. The SDLP leader reinforced his party's view that the powers of ministers in a new executive must not be weakened.
"Some might think that all the details on accountability are irrelevant. They are anything but," he said.
"They are about the nature and stability of our shared political institutions. They are about equality. They go to the heart of the political debate."
Mr Durkan said he was not prepared to trust the DUP. "The DUP are asking us to trust them on power-sharing. Meanwhile they shaft nationalists at council level.
"In [Ian] Paisley's Ballymena, in [Peter] Robinson's Castlereagh, [Jeffrey] Donaldson's Lisburn Council, the picture is the same - nationalists are excluded, and others, too, when they can," he added.
"That is why we are taking nothing on trust from the DUP. We will not afford them a veto over nationalist ministers in the hope that they will not use it. We will not allow them new blocks on the North-South agenda on the assumption that they won't abuse it," said Mr Durkan.