The SDLP leader, Mr John Hume, yesterday appealed to the IRA for a "gesture" on decommissioning to help get over the current hurdle in the Northern peace process.
He was joined in Dublin in his appeal by the Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister, Mr Seamus Mallon, who said the republican movement could not continue to "hedge its bets and claim the benefits of the ballot box while defying the clearly expressed will of the people that decommissioning happen now".
Meanwhile, Mr Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein said yesterday that it was ludicrous to suggest that the Northern Ireland Assembly could be brought down over decommissioning.
Speaking after the opening of St Eithne's Primary School in Derry, the Minister of Education said his party did not have sole
responsibility for dealing with decommissioning. He believed the Sinn Fein leadership had taken the greatest risks of all in attempting to reach a political settlement.
"The guns are silent and it's now the responsibility of the political parties to ensure that the Good Friday agreement continues to be implemented and then it's a matter for the armed groups to face up to the challenge which that will pose for them," he said.
Mr Hume, after meeting Mr Ahern and the new Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, before Gen John de Chastelain's report on Monday, said a gesture on decommissioning from the IRA would be a very valuable step in improving the atmosphere and making progress.
He said he and Mr Mallon agreed with the Taoiseach to use all in their power to resolve the current difficulty and he hoped the report would be positive and "that the necessary steps will be taken to make sure that the report is positive".
Mr Mallon said the republican movement "cannot continue to claim to act on behalf of the people of Ireland while defying their clearly expressed will that decommissioning happen now".
He said a report which failed to give confidence that decommissioning was on course would damage faith in the Good Friday agreement for those unionists who had stood steadfastly by it.
"The agreement remains dependent on unionist faith as it does on nationalist or republican faith," he said.
He said there was an assumption of a strong possibility of a suspension of the Northern Ireland Assembly if no progress on decommissioning was evident. "That is an assumption that I am not prepared to accept at this stage. We don't know what the de Chastelain report will entail. We don't know the positive elements that may be in that report."