Ian Paisley faces his biggest political decision, writes Gerry Moriarty, Northern Editor
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and British prime minister Tony Blair will meet either next week or the week after to finalise the new British-Irish partnership arrangements if a powersharing deal is not struck by Monday, accordingto official sources.
If the deal is done Mr Ahern and Mr Blair will stand back and leave most of the running of Northern Ireland to the Rev Ian Paisley, Martin McGuinness and their Northern executive ministers.
It's a simple either-or scenario, as far as the British and Irish governments would have it, notwithstanding some DUP proposals calling for eight weeks or so of procrastination before devolution, as a middle way through the current problems.
These frenetic days Dr Paisley is shuttling back and forth between Belfast and London in meetings with Mr Blair, Peter Hain, "stingy" Gordon Brown and, of course, his own party strategists such as Peter Robinson and Nigel Dodds.
It's a punishing schedule for a man close to his 81st birthday but he's handling it well. He wants to do a deal, w are assured. But will his nervous party allow him? What unfolds at a meeting of up to 130 DUP executive members in Belfast this morning should provide most of the answer. If the answer is a clear "yes" Mr Hain will sign a restoration order for midnight tomorrow night to return power to Stormont and to permit the Assembly to formally meet at noon on Monday to select its executive.
If the answer is unclear or the signals are mixed, he might sign the order in any case to test whether at high noon on Monday Dr Paisley and the DUP might finally agree to share power. Ulster Unionist leader Sir Reg Empey said yesterday there could be "no halfway house between devolution and direct rule" but at the time of writing that is what many in the DUP are seeking.
Equally, Northern Secretary Peter Hain and Mr Blair have staked their credibility on their insistence that when they said it was devolution or dissolution, they meant just that. But they have allowed some wriggle room, according to official and political sources, about when the executive might meet.
Were devolution successfully triggered on Monday there could be
a situation where - while individual
ministers went about their business - the actual Northern
executive might not gather together until some time inMay.
The governments could live with that, it seems, although they are also pressing for an initial early executive meeting to allow the new regime collectively place a one-year moratorium on water rates. The point the governments generally make is that once devolution is up and running it is down to the parties themselves to agree how it should operate. But whether this would satisfy the DUP remains uncertain.
What the governments say they can't live with is introducing emergency legislation that would allow the executive to operate in some type of shadow or transitional form for about eight weeks, when the DUP might be ready to formally share power with Sinn Féin.
DUP politicians such as Gregory Campbell MP argue that the party must be given more time to ensure that it does not split or splinter, just as Sinn Féin bought time, lots of it, to deal with difficult issues. On Thursday he said that as matters stood devolution could not happen on Monday.
But if it doesn't, and if the governments are to be believed, then it is dissolution. That means that Mr Ahern and Mr Blair will meet next week or the week after to implement Plan B, which involves a stronger role for Dublin in the affairs of Northern Ireland.
It means a lot else besides that would be abhorrent to the DUP and its supporters. All 108 new Assembly members would lose their pay and allowances. Stormont would shut. The St Andrews legislation, which the DUP contended did away with elements of the Belfast Agreement which were anathema to the party, would fall and it would be back to the Belfast Agreement.
Bills for water charges would be dropped in hundreds of thousands of letter boxes.
A £1 billion financial package of "new money" would be lost. British direct rule ministers would press ahead with scrapping the Eleven Plus primary to secondary school-level transfer tests, which unionists tend to favour.
And were, sometime in the future, the DUP to feel it was time to share power, a new election would be required. Last night the talking continued, as it will today, and so did this brinkmanship battle for huge takes.
All that's really certain is that Dr Paisley has the biggest call of his political life to make.