Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has expressed confidence that there is a determination by all parties to make progress at the talks in Scotland this week on getting the Northern Ireland Assembly up and running.
Mr Ahern, who was in Fermoy, Co Cork, yesterday, said there were clearly issues outstanding since the failure to reach an agreement on the re-establishment of the assembly and institutions in 2004 but he believed both governments had made substantial progress since last April.
"It's essential we do make progress if we are to reach the November 24th deadline . . . I think as we go in the week of these talks, there certainly is an air of action by everyone to do their best to bring it as far as we can," he added.
Mr Ahern said he had discussions with many of the parties over the weekend and he will be meeting both Sinn Féin and the SDLP today. It was essential that they adopted a coherent unified position on as many issues as possible to try and achieve overall agreement.
"What I wouldn't like to think is that we would get into any arguments between ourselves on this occasion. In 2004, there were some issues outstanding after the talks where there wasn't a clear line - I think we should narrow those down and have a very clear position," he said.
However, Mr Ahern stressed that while he believed it was essential that all parties made progress this week, he did not believe that the parties had to reach a final agreement next week once they did move substantially closer to a deal.
"It's not a question of bringing this to a signing this week because we still have a good period of time after it, but it is key that we can get a clear understanding between all the parties on the basis of working towards a powersharing executive as per the Good Friday Agreement."
Mr Ahern was speaking in Fermoy where, quoting from first World War poet Laurence Binyon, he unveiled a memorial to 131 men from the town and surrounding villages who lost their lives fighting with the Allies in that war.
The memorial by sculptor Ken Thompson reminded him of the Island of Ireland Peace Park in Messines in Belgium, he said, which was a permanent memorial to Irishmen from different backgrounds from every corner of Ireland who died in the Great War, he said.
"These men were Protestant and Catholic, unionist and nationalist, but their differences were transcended by a common higher purpose."
The memorial was the brainchild of the Friends of Fermoy's Forgotten Committee. Committee chairman Paudie McGrath told close to 1,000 people that the 131 men from Fermoy whom they were commemorating had complex and varied motivations for enlisting.
"These were men with different political ideals, of different religious traditions, different feelings of cultural and national identity. Yet their experience of war was often a shared bewilderment at the carnage, shared tragedy and sacrifice on the battlefields."
The ceremony yesterday was attended by British ambassador David Reddaway, Australian ambassador Anne Plunkett and military representatives of the British, Australian and Canadian armies, as well as GOC Southern Brigade, Brig Gen Pádraig O'Callaghan.
