The British and Irish governments are working flat-out to prevent Mr David Trimble's resignation and a July 1st crisis for the Belfast Agreement.
That was made clear last night at the conclusion of more than three hours of talks between the British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, and the three main pro-agreement parties - the Ulster Unionists, Sinn Fein and the SDLP.
The mood in Downing Street was said to be stark as the two prime ministers and the party leaders prepared the ground for a make-or-break negotiation in Belfast next week.
Mr Trimble said his "patience is at an end" over the IRA's failure to decommission and renewed his threat to force a crisis by resigning as First Minister.
However, Mr Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein president, branded Mr Trimble's resignation threat as "rash and reckless" and doubted if the outstanding issues could be resolved by Mr Trimble's declared deadline.
Mr Trimble countered that: "There will be a crisis in the institutions that will be occasioned by my resignation. I'm doing it deliberately to bring the issue to a head because in the light of experience we have had in the way Mr Adams and others have acted, if I give him time he will waste it. If there's a crisis now it is entirely due to the prevarication of the republican movement and the fact that they have wasted the opportunities they were given."
Mr Trimble made it clear that he had no intention of standing down as leader of the Ulster Unionist Party in the event of his resigning as First Minister.
Despite the rhetoric, a Downing Street spokesman said the discussions had given Mr Blair and Mr Ahern the opportunity to "take stock" and prepare for negotiations on ways to achieve the full implementation of the Good Friday accord.
Sources confirmed that the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach would lead the resumed negotiation, almost certainly in Northern Ireland, at the start of next week.
After the talks, Mr Ahern said he would rather the time scale of Mr Trimble's declared deadline "wasn't as tight" but regardless of his decision, he had wanted progress on outstanding issues before the marching season in Northern Ireland. "If everybody is determined to work on them, as I am, then I think we can make a lot of progress, but if people are not determined to work on them then we won't make progress."