The Taoiseach said today that the IRA and Sinn Féin is now involved in an All-Ireland consultation process on ending paramilitarism, criminality and decommissioning.
Speaking ahead of meetings with key parties in the northern peace process Mr Ahern said he hoped the consultation would permit all parties move on with the peace process.
Tomorrow Mr Ahern will meet new Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Peter Hain in Dublin. Mr Hain today met US President George Bush's special envoy to Northern Ireland, Mitchell Reiss, who vowed to do all he could to help that process.
Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern will also meet Mr Hain.
The Taoiseach will also meet with Mr Reiss this week, on Thursday. Earlier today Mr Reiss met Mr Hain at the Northern Ireland Office in London and described the talks as positive.
"We had a very good meeting this morning." Mr Reiss said it was "a delight" to finally meet Mr Hain. "I very much look forward to working with him very closely in the weeks and months ahead," he said.
"The goal is, as it has always been, to try and bring peace to the people of Northern Ireland who for so long have wanted it so very much.
"And everything that I can do, that the Bush administration can do, that the president can do in order to assist, we will do so, and I think we're off to a very good start today."
Mr Hain described the meeting as "excellent" and paid tribute to Mr Reiss's work.
Today's meeting took place two days before Prime Minister Tony Blair holds talks in Downing Street with the Rev Ian Paisley's Democrat Unionists and Sinn Féin.
Mr Reiss will also meet nationalist and unionist politicians in Belfast this week as the Irish, British and US governments assess the state of the peace process following the recent British general election and the local government elections in the North.