Ahern hoping to secure North deal before Christmas

“I’m quite clear this morning from the meeting I’ve had with the leadership of Sinn Féin that they want to do it this week,” he said.

“We’ll obviously be keeping in touch with the DUP – I hope that they want to do it – and I detect that the public certainly does.”

The Irish and British governments published their proposals for restoring power-sharing last week, but the deal was put on hold due to ongoing disagreement about IRA decommissioning.

The DUP, backed by the two governments, has demanded photographic evidence of the IRA destroying its weapons.

However, Sinn Féin is vehemently resisting such a move, saying it would be used by DUP leader Ian Paisley as a means to humiliate republicans.

Speaking after today’s talks, Mr Adams said the idea of photographs was still out of the question.

Mr Ahern said it would be “insanity” at this stage not to find a way of settling all the issues.

“We were happy with John de Chastelain,” he said. “Then there was the issue of further witnesses, we were happy with that.

“We had the issue of photographs and that’s not workable so we have to try to find some other way.”

Mr Ahern stressed that decommissioning was ready to happen but no progress would be made unless there was a comprehensive deal.

Both the British and Irish governments would have been satisfied with the deal as it was laid on the table to the DUP and Sinn Féin last week. He said the issues regarding criminality and paramilitary activity were “not that much different” to those set out last October.

Hopes of reaching an agreement to revive the political institutions were shattered last week when the deal unravelled.

Mr Ahern said: “We were very close last Wednesday. There are one or two issues that have to be resolved and we believe it’s possible to resolve these.”