The North's Deputy First Minister has said that if negotiations on the North do not reach a successful conclusion by next weekend the peace process will "bleed away".
Mr Seamus Mallon of the SDLP said he supported his party leader's proposal for round-table talks on the main sticking points of policing, demilitarisation and IRA weapons.
British sources indicated that preparations for these talks were under way and they were likely to take place later this week.
The deputy first minister said that the Taoiseach and British Prime Minister shared the view that the weekend marked the deadline for progress. "The object would be to draw things to a close - wherever that close leads us - rather than to let the whole process bleed away as it is at present," he said.
"Anybody would recognise that we have now come to a stage there is nothing new to be said about any of these issues. There are no new bright ideas."
The SDLP and Sinn Fein have remained largely united so far in saying that police reform proposals have not gone far enough but many commentators believe the SDLP may be close to accepting new British proposals. Mr Mallon said that while there was a "natural nationalist consensus" on many policing issues "that applies not on Sinn Fein terms but on the basis of the type of wide consensus which exists within this island".
The Sinn Fein president described as "totally hypothetical" any suggestion that the SDLP would accept the British proposals. Mr Adams said that what was on offer did not address the party's concerns, and that nationalists should remain united on the issue.
Until the British returned to the Patten proposals he did not think any nationalist or republican would join the new police service. The Ulster Unionist leader predicted that the SDLP would indeed break with Sinn Fein on the policing issue.
Mr Trimble said that when the party made, "as I am sure it eventually will have to make, the decision to support policing in Northern Ireland," it would be vital the Government supported it "wholly and unequivocally in that decision".
Speaking on RTE Mr Trimble also said that calls by the new Fine Gael leader for an all-Ireland approach to animal transport because of the foot-and-mouth crisis were ill-conceived. "The British Isles is a common travel area - is Mr Noonan proposing to end that? I think not. He should think more carefully before he speaks," he said.
The family of the murdered lawyer Patrick Finucane meanwhile has urged nationalists not to accept any watering down of demands for a full public inquiry into Mr Finucane's death and the other suspicious killings linked to the security forces.
The family's call came in a letter to the Taoiseach, the British Prime Minister and other politicians.