The Taoiseach has said that the rebuilding of the Northern Ireland peace process will take time and cannot be rushed.
However, he warned that the situation must not be allowed to stall.
Speaking on Sky News, Bertie Ahern warned that it would be disastrous to let the progress made slip back and explained why it must be handled realistically.
"If the British government tomorrow morning was to remove the suspension of the institutions, that means that within six weeks we have to have both the Assembly and the executive set up and if it wasn’t done in that time, then they have to suspend again.
"So it would start and would stop after six weeks, and of course if that happened you would have to have another election. Now I don’t think that any of those options are desirable"