Blair and Ahern: Downing Street summit

The prime minister has met his Irish counterpart Bertie Ahern in Downing Street as the Ulster peace process comes to terms with its latest crisis.

Tony Blair and the taoiseach were due to discuss security service information on December's Belfast Northern Bank robbery, which both men have blamed on the IRA.

The incident has put any prospect of a fresh devolution deal into the deep freeze, despite a breakthrough having almost been reached last year.

Sinn Fein has been under severe pressure to crack down on alleged IRA criminality, and decommission terrorist weapons.

Members of Ahern's Dublin administration have hit out at leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, accusing them of being members of the IRA's army council, a charge they deny.

A community uprising against the republican movement in Northern Ireland also followed an alleged murder cover-up in a Belfast bar last month.

However, the two governments have refused unionist demands to lock Sinn Fein out of devolution talks and restore the suspended institutions without them.

Inclusion

In a speech in London ahead of the talks, Ahern said he would keep trying to bring all parties together.

"The peace process is a collective responsibility that carries obligations for all of us, the parties as well as the governments," he said.

"We are not seeking to humiliate any group or score political points. We fully respect the mandates of all parties.

"This is an inclusive process and the government will continue to work towards an inclusive, comprehensive peace settlement.

"At the same time, it is essential that everybody abides by the commitment in the [Good Friday] agreement to the exclusive use of democratic and peaceful means."

And after the talks he used his most conciliatory language yet towards Sinn Fein.

"This has been a difficult number of weeks for the president of Sinn Fein Gerry Adams," he said.

"I think that Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness have worked enormously hard. I understand what they have been trying to do, to keep everybody with them.

"I do not think that Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness have put so much into this process not to see it through. I think they are endeavouring to find a comprehensive solution."

Criminality

Downing Street also insisted after the meeting that the Stormont assembly could be revived, if republicans finally renounce all illegality, of which the McCartney murder was the latest example.

Number 10's official spokesman said: "The prime minister and taoiseach believe that the McCartney family themselves are the most eloquent in terms of putting out what they want from Sinn Fein which is that those responsible for their brother's murder should make themselves accountable for that."

"We need to hear from republicans that all criminality and paramilitary activity is at an end. It is all down to that single issue," a Number 10 source had said earlier.

Sinn Fein chairman Mitchel McLaughlin said he hoped the two leaders would reach out to his party, rather than castigate it further.

"The taoiseach, as the head of the Irish government, needs to end the politics of recrimination and start to point us in the direction of political progress," the assembly member said.