No move expected on NI process until autumn, says Ahern

The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, has said he does not expect further developments in the Northern peace process until the autumn. Emphasising the need to be positive after a month of negativity, he said yesterday: "It is time to stabilise things, to get on with it."

"Through the Good Friday Agreement itself, Weston Park, the joint declaration and the comprehensive agreement of last December, there is ample context for everyone to move forward. The issues are now clear. What needs to be done is clear."

Speaking at St Patrick's College, Drumcondra, Dublin, at the launch of the 2005 booklet of the Centre for Cross-Border Studies, he said the Government would "continue to engage with the British government and all parties to advance all aspects of the Good Friday Agreement".

"Ultimately we will have to come around to the starting line again. Everyone may not get to it again. History says that's the way it always was. History is usually right." He said the people he did not expect at the starting line again were those supporting the physical force tradition; that this was a feature of Irish history. They would "drift off", he said.

He had anticipated the failure to reach agreement last December. "I saw it coming last year. In April 2003 and October 2003 we got very close to the line. The issue was the same. I am not going to say very much about it, though it is not fully understood by the wider audience. The same issue, the same specific issue created difficulties for the negotiations." He confirmed later the issues were decommissioning and criminality.

Meanwhile, the Government looked forward "to working intensively over the coming months to ensure that the momentum of North-South co-operation to mutual benefit - and I stress that it must continue to pass that test - is maintained and developed".

Referring to past relations he quoted a description from the booklet by former editor of The Irish Times Mr Conor Brady of "the great, icy silence" between North and South in the 1950s.

"Measured against that backdrop, what had happened to North-South relations in the almost seven years since the Good Friday Agreement has been remarkable." He said he looked forward to the day - and he strongly wished it to be soon - when representatives of the Northern Ireland parties were back in the North-South Ministerial Council.

It was also "essential that North-South co-operation is not the exclusive preserve of the politicians or the public sector". The private sector, trade unions, the farming sector, the voluntary and community sector, the universities and other educational institutions, all had a critical role to play also in the process, he said.

It was where the role of the Centre for Cross-Border Studies was " so important and valuable". He thanked its "tireless director, Andy Pollak, who I know gets great support from the board and his colleagues". He was pleased they shared their Armagh premises with the Joint Secretariat of the North-South Ministerial Council.