Like a funeral in Dail after events in North

You always know there's a crisis in the North when the Opposition leaders are forced to be nice to the Taoiseach.

So it was in a funereal Dáil yesterday, as TDs surveyed the wreckage of Tuesday's events in Belfast and queued up to tell Mr Ahern they were sorry for his troubles.

Normally, Leader's Questions unfolds like a carefully choreographed sequencing arrangement in a reverse peace process. For example, Pat Rabbitte asks a simple question. The Taoiseach replies. Mr Rabbitte complains that the level of transparency in the reply is dramatically short of what was required. The Ceann Comhairle and a number of hecklers intervene, and there is a gradual descent into bitterness and recrimination. Often, calm is only restored when the live TV broadcast ends.

But it's a basic rule of question-time that you do not exploit the Government's difficulties on the North. In fact, for Opposition leaders who aspire to head future governments, a crisis in the peace process is an opportunity to advertise credentials, with constructive comments on how the crisis might be resolved. Only Joe Higgins - who, for the moment at least, is free of the burden of being a potential Taoiseach - could afford to ignore the North yesterday and devote his Leaders' Questions slot to the bin charges.

Otherwise Enda Kenny set the tone, expressing deep disappointment about Tuesday's setback and fretting that elections held in the current context could have "fatal consequences". But in a theme that would be developed by Mr Rabbitte, he also admitted finding it "quite extraordinary" that an unknown representative of the Provisional IRA had been able "to impose a vow of silence" on the two governments.

Indeed, the invisible IRA man cast a shadow on the Taoiseach's replies. Looking tired and emotionally drained, Mr Ahern spoke of the "deep frustration" he had felt the night before, and admitted he had been reluctant to leave for Belfast because he could not first contact Gen de Chastelain, as arranged. That was one problem, he said. But of the IRA's unknown soldier, he added: "Unfortunately . . . I can talk to anybody in this process except the people who might be able to help".

While the Opposition accepted that Gen de Chastelain was bound by the seal of the confessional not to divulge all the details of the arms decommissioning, Mr Rabbitte wondered aloud if the same obligation applied to the prime ministers.

He was particularly frustrated by Tony Blair's suggestion that if everybody knew what they and the general knew, there would be no problem. Could this general knowledge, as it were, not be made available by the governments?

Mr Ahern suggested that while such a move was possible, it would "end the process" for the IRA. Then, in wistfully reflective mood, he added: "Things have moved on considerably since an occasion under a previous British government when it was said to me that one bullet would solve the problem. Unfortunately they have not moved on enough for the UUP, and we have to keep at it."