Obstacles still hold up progress in North

NORTHERN IRELAND parties still want elections sooner rather than later, the Taoiseach said yesterday, but the same obstacles remain to be overcome.

Following his meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the weekend, Mr Ahern said the problem was going beyond the Assembly elections and getting an executive up and running.

"We want to have an election this side of Christmas. We want to have the prospect that that election will give us a power-sharing executive and we want to see that they will implement a Programme for Government that will give stability in Northern Ireland and not have the stop-start crises," he said.