Taoiseach Bertie Ahern today offered his support to an embattled Tony Blair.
Mr Ahern praised the British prime minister as a great leader and a great colleague to work with. In a strong show of support for his long-term partner in the Northern Ireland peace process, Mr Ahern also said he hoped they could achieve power-sharing this year.
"He brought his party to power for the third time last year and then he got into all these difficulties," said Mr Ahern. "In my view Tony Blair is a great leader and a great prime minister and a great colleague to work with, both in Europe and on Irish matters."
Mr Ahern said he hoped Mr Blair remained in office as the talks deadline for power-sharing between Northern Ireland's political parties looms. "We have a very busy agenda between now and November 24th, so I look forward to working with him on that," he added.
Mr Ahern and Mr Blair are expected to meet the Northern Ireland parties at talks in Scotland following the publication of the Independent Monitoring Commission report early next month.
Mr Ahern told a meeting of the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party on Monday that he and Mr Blair were working closely on devising alternatives if political talks were not successful.
"We now need to get the institutions up and running. Obviously we've had discussions about alternatives, but I really don't see alternatives as a success. But if we have to have alternatives, we'll have alternatives," he said.
PA
