The Taoiseach and the president of Sinn Féin fielded questions on IRA decommissioning when they joined the big crowds at the National Ploughing Championships yesterday.
The Taoiseach expressed understanding of the initial response of the DUP leader; the Rev Ian Paisley still needed to be convinced.
Asked if had been disappointed with Dr Paisley's response on Monday, Mr Ahern said he had expected him to respond in that way.
"I could have written the script even before he delivered it," he said.
Gerry Adams said that even if republicans stripped naked on the lawns of Stormont, decommissioned their weapons and committed hara-kiri, there would be some loyalists who would refuse to believe them.
Speaking to journalists at the National Ploughing Championships in Mogeely, Mr Adams said Sinn Féin planned to give unionists a breathing space to allow them make up their minds about what they were doing.
Asked about Dr Paisley's reaction to the decommissioning, Mr Adams replied: "It's like being stuck in traffic trying to get into the ploughing championships. It took time but we got here."
In reply to questions about whether or not Sinn Féin would go into coalition in the Republic, he said Sinn Féin would first have to get a mandate from the people and then negotiate an economic and social programme with other parties.
In that context he raised the issue of the Rossport Five and said the imprisoning of the Mayo farmers was "a national disgrace".
Asked what Sinn Féin could do to convince unionists on decommissioning , Mr Adams replied: "A very senior unionist said to me a year or two ago that if the IRA stripped naked on the lawn of Stormont and decommissioned their weapons and one by one committed hara-kiri, some people within unionism would not be convinced.
"I think Ian Paisley knows that the IRA have put their arms beyond use and this is all delaying stuff, negotiating stuff. It is not that he is concerned about the weapons, for if he was he would raise issues about loyalist weapons which are being used to kill people.
"His concern is a process of change and a concern, because he has lived and built a career on frightening people and on crisis, that change is not perhaps going to be good for unionism," Mr Adams said.
He said all parties, including Sinn Féin, would have to be proactive in reassuring unionists.
"But our focus at this time is pushing forward the peace process and seeing it implemented on both parts of this island for the good of all its people," he said.
"We have to remind ourselves that Michael McDowell is not a big player in the peace process and the Taoiseach made a commitment at the time of the peace process in relation to Northern representation in the Oireachtas," he said.
"He said an all-party committee of the Oireachtas made a recommendation that Northern representation should be permitted and the Taoiseach had said recently that he will start that process and we would expect some progress on that issue.
"In the fullness of time we want to see all republican prisoners released.
"Myself and Martin Ferris met them in Castlerea recently. So in the fullness of time we want to see all of this done and dusted and people getting on with their lives," he said.
Mr Adams said he was very conscious, having been a victim himself, of the crisis facing victims of those people convicted of killing of Det Garda Jerry McCabe and he was very, very conscious of the trauma of the McCabe family.
Asked if the IRA had gone away, Mr Adams said he knew who had not gone away: the British army, the PSNI, and unionist paramilitaries who had killed people in his own constituency.
"Interestingly enough, the DUP sits on a commission which involves a number of illegal unionist paramilitaries. They have not gone away."