In the first fumble in his careful handling of the Northern issue, the Taoiseach has created a new controversy over his contradictory statements about the decommissioning of IRA arms.
Mr Ahern is expected to come under pressure from the Opposition in the Dail this week to clarify the position as to whether a start must be made to decommissioning before Sinn Fein can enter the Northern executive.
In an interview with the Sunday Times, Mr Ahern indicated that the executive could not be established without a start to decommissioning by the IRA. A Government spokesman said Mr Ahern was not denying the contents of the interview "in its totality", published in question-and-answer form on the Internet, but not in the newspaper.
Mr Ahern is taking issue, however, with the newspaper's interpretation of the interview. He denied last night that he had stated that Sinn Fein should be "barred" from the executive in the absence of any IRA decommissioning.
He said Sinn Fein thought the Government's policy had changed when it saw the headline to the interview. "It is not a change. But that does not remove the pressure to find a resolution on the decommissioning issue".
Further confusion surrounded the Taoiseach's position, however, when Sinn Fein chief negotiator, Mr Martin McGuinness, said he had been "in direct contact" with Mr Ahern yesterday afternoon and had been assured that the comments in the Sunday Times were inaccurate and did not reflect the Government's position.
In his formal interview, Mr Ahern said the Government's view was that decommissioning in one form or another had to happen. "I am on record in recent weeks and months as saying that it is not compatible with being a part of a government - I mean part of an executive - that there is not at least a commencement of decommissioning, and that would apply in the North, it would apply in the South. That is what we need to achieve".
When it was put to Mr Ahern by the interviewer that he was really saying that regardless of what it said in the agreement, the practical politics were that there could be no executive without a start to decommissioning, he began his answer with "Yes".
To be absolutely clear, the interviewer asked put it to Mr Ahern that "when you say decommissioning you mean a start to the destruction of weapons and a commitment to continue. That needs to be made before you can get (an executive) going". The Taoiseach replied: "Yeah". He qualified that, however, by continuing: "It means that the principle has to be accepted that then whatever modalities are worked out by De Chastelain, because that is (his) expertise to work out how it actually happens, and that is what we mean".
The Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton, said last night that Mr Ahern's "irresponsibly confusing statements" were making the task of those working for decommissioning with the republican movement even more difficult. "They have no definite Irish Government position to put to the IRA," he added.
