The Government is to press urgently for an unambiguous IRA commitment to weapons decommissioning with plans imminent in London for a suspension of the Northern Ireland Executive and other political institutions established by the Belfast Agreement.
The Taoiseach said in Dublin last night that they only had " a day or two". He was returning to Government Building and expected discussions to last through the night. "We obviously will try to make an additional input into Gen. de Chastelain's findings," Mr Ahern said.
The British government, which had been keen to move to signal a suspension of the institutions, agreed yesterday to the postponement of an announcement until tomorrow afternoon to allow further intensive efforts to seek movement from the IRA.
The decision comes as the peace process appears to be in crisis. The Ulster Unionist Party seems set to walk out of the institutions, with its leader, Mr David Trimble, resigning as First Minister on Friday, unless a suspension is announced this week.
This follows the report of the international decommissioning body, given to the two governments early yesterday but not yet released, which is believed to report no progress towards actual decommissioning of weapons.
Government sources acknowledge they have given up hope that a gesture on decommissioning will take place this week. However, despite widespread predictions of imminent crisis, it still hopes that today or tomorrow the IRA will give the head of the international decommissioning body, Gen. John de Chastelain, a convincing commitment to decommissioning in the future.
Intensive political contacts are to continue in a last-ditch effort to achieve such an outcome and avert a suspension of the institutions, described as a potential "disaster" yesterday by the Taoiseach. The Government hopes that such an IRA commitment in turn would lead to the general pronouncing that he is convinced the IRA will decommission its weapons.
The Government also hopes that this would lead the UUP to agree that the political institutions should not be suspended.
While the Government insists there is no deadline for such developments, British sources indicated last night that the Northern Secretary, Mr Peter Mandelson, would announce a suspension of the Assembly, the Executive and the North-South Ministerial Council in the House of Commons tomorrow, unless there was some dramatic development.
This is to stave off the resignation of Mr Trimble as First Minister, which would take place automatically next Friday.
February 4th is the date believed to be on a post-dated letter of resignation Mr Trimble gave party officials late last year to help convince his party's ruling council to agree to set up the new institutions without prior decommissioning.
In a day of intense political activity, Mr Trimble held a press conference yesterday to say he believed a suspension of institutions was now inevitable.
However, Mr Mandelson, speaking in Dublin after meeting the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, rejected Mr Trimble's statement, saying: "Something only becomes inevitable when there is no other option."
Both Mr Mandelson and Mr Cowen insisted that there was still life in the process of seeking a resolution of this latest crisis.
According to Mr Mandelson, the de Chastelain report "raises one or two interesting questions, and those must be explored further". He said "a bit of a breathing space, however short", was needed "to see whether we can find a breakthrough at this stage".
Mr Cowen also perceived some progress in a statement issued by the IRA yesterday saying it was "totally committed" to the peace process; that it wanted "a permanent peace"; that its ceasefire was entering its fifth year; that its guns were silent; and that "there is no threat to the peace process from the IRA".
This is understood to reflect statements made by the IRA to Gen. de Chastelain.
Speaking in Irish, Mr Cowen said this statement contained some progress but more needed to be made from what had been said so far.
Government sources conceded last night that the IRA would not deliver any "product" this week, but indicated they were seeking to extract an "absolutely clear commitment" from the IRA that decommissioning would take place. Signalling this approach, Mr Ahern told the Dail yesterday: "The issue is one of commitment, the certainty of the commitment."