Commonwealth Option for Ahern

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With the long cold war between Britain and Ireland now over, Mr Ahern said that members of his Fianna Fail party had raised the question of rejoining and "it will be an issue that will be debated over time".

Ireland left the Commonwealth when it became a republic in 1949. Advocates say that rejoining would confirm the new partnership between Londoin and Dublin and send a positive signal to Northern Ireland's Unionists.

Mr Ahern said that the Commonwealth, with its imperialistic origins, was still viewed with suspicion, but "it's a very different thing now than it was 50 years ago". He would not argue against rejoining, and "I certainly won't be suppressing the debate".

Mr Blair will be the first non-head of state from any country to address the Irish Parliament. Interviewed in his panelled office in Dublin's Government Buildings, Mr Ahern recalled a meeting of British and Irish dignitaries during Baroness Thatcher's premiership when relations were so fraught that "if someone had dropped a bottle there would have been fighting in the room".

He said that, only five years ago, the controversy surrounding such an address would have been "unimaginable" but on this occasion he had not received a single letter of protest. The invitation was a "tribute" to Mr Blair's "huge commitment" to resolving the problem of Northern Ireland that has bedevilled Anglo-Irish relations for three quarters of a century. None of the Prime Minister's predecessors could have secured the Good Friday peace accord, and he was "coming here as a genuine friend from a friendly nation".

But Mr Ahern dismissed speculation that the address would be followed quickly by the first state visit by a reigning British monarch since 1911, when Ireland was still under British rule. He said that the Queen wanted to come, but not until the accord was "bedded down" and Northern Ireland's new institutions were fully functioning. That would not be before mid-2000 at the earliest, and perhaps another year after that.

"It would be entirely wrong to have the Queen enmeshed in controversy", he said. "When it happens, it should be done with all the occasion that it deserves".

Mr Ahern also signalled his readiness to put intense pressure on Sinn Fein and the IRA if the republican movement continued to breach the spirit of the accord by refusing to disarm.

London and Dublin were honouring their commitments. Prisoners were being released. "We always understood that, if we got this far, there would be decommissioning", he said. Agreement was close on the size of the new power-sharing executive and the remits of the new north-south bodies. At that point "we can say to Sinn Fein... it's ten months on and everybody else has done A, B, C and D and done 95 per cent and you have done nothing", he said. "I do think that puts the pressure on them. Certainly I won't be stalling about putting the pressure back on them. We need some clear message or signal that all of this is gettting us somewhere."

Mr Ahern said that David Trimble, the First Minister, had also breached the accord by refusing to set up the executive without preconditions. "Everybody is guilty", he said.

But he accepted that, for political reasons, Mr Trimble could not move without progress on decommissioning. He also accepted that Gerry Adams could not deliver IRA disarmament, but insisted that "he and his colleagues have to keep acting as persuaders".

Mr Ahern dismissed reports that the IRA held a special "army" convention to discuss decommissioning last weekend. He also downplayed his own assertion on Sunday that Ireland would be united in his lifetime. He was speaking as a party leader at his party's conference, not as Taoiseach, and expressing his own long-term aspirations, just as Mr Blair had stated that reunification would not occur within his lifetime. The important thing was to see the accord fully implemented and "let the future take care of itself".