Reinterpreting the D-word in quest to break arms deadlock

Welcome to the land of conflicting signals. Keep one eye closed and there seem to be signs of creeping normality: a British soldier in downtown Belfast is as rare as a white blackbird and the shops are gearing up for what should be a bumper Christmas.

An invitation has come in to attend the opening of new premises by a political lobby group called Stratagem - set up by the chief spokesman of the non-party Yes campaign in last May's referendum, Mr Quintin Oliver - which will seek to guide its clients through the "new architecture of governance" in Northern Ireland.

Every other week one hears of a new hotel, nightclub or restaurant being opened in the city. With every visit, Stormont seems more and more like a properly-functioning parliament - except it doesn't have any powers yet.

Open both eyes and you can see black clouds at the edge of the horizon. While republicans rock with laughter at talk of imminent splits or a barrow-load of explosives being "decommissioned" in a country field, they become quite gloomy when asked about the prospects of getting the new institutions up and running by the spring.

It was always suspected the current process would "go to the wire". But the delay has been so protracted and there has been so little movement that senior republican sources said that at this stage it was hard to know where the "wire" was located. While elements of the media and the political establishment might paint a picture of cheery normality, unless there was a change of course the good ship "Peace Process" and her sister vessel, "Belfast Agreement", would end up on the rocks.

Senior political sources in Dublin were more cheerful. There was agreement with the British side on the cross-Border bodies and the new departmental structures. It was now a question of Mr Blair applying his powers of persuasion to the leadership of the Ulster Unionist Party.

Yesterday, Mr Trimble and Mr Mallon met for over three hours to iron out the remaining difficulties - not the apparently insuperable one of decommissioning but the number of departments and the areas of responsibility for North-South institutions. Talks are due to resume this morning.

The word from both sides was that modest but real progress had been made. Privately, a senior unionist expressed exasperation with the stance of the Mallon camp that a cross-Border body on industrial development had the same importance for the SDLP as decommissioning for the unionists. While unionists maintain that the low corporation tax rate in the Republic prevents harmonisation in the drive for foreign investment, the SDLP has kept up the pressure to ensure that a cross-Border body for trade promotion and economic development will have teeth. A compromise is in sight, although the unionists are still worried about conveying the impression abroad that the island is a single political and cultural unit.

Political insiders believe there will be eight or nine cross-Border implementation bodies, and the most up-to-date list doing the rounds includes such areas as food safety, tourism, aquaculture, the Irish and Ulster Scots languages, inland waterways, European funding programmes, and strategic transport planning. Tourism was difficult, sources said, but a compromise was reached which left Northern Ireland's identity as a separate tourist destination intact.

The details of a North-South institution on European funding were still being fought over yesterday. The UUP is said to be keen on the inland waterways body, though, especially if Dublin stumps up a decent amount of money to develop the Ulster Canal, which flows through both jurisdictions.

There may be surprise at the relative ease in reaching agreement on the cross-Border body to promote Irish. The price was the inclusion of Ulster Scots. Unionists felt the new body was "no skin off their nose", although some senior SDLP figures worried it would weaken their case for powerful institutions in the economic area. There was some disappointment in SDLP circles at a report that the South had backed away from a proposal for a North-South body in the agricultural area, although the significance of this was being played down by Dublin sources last night.

A visit by the British Prime Minister today or tomorrow to help break the logjam has not been ruled out, although it now appears unlikely. Plans for a visit by the Taoiseach this week - Thursday was mentioned - are still vague and it is understood the UUP leadership has gently advised Mr Ahern that it would not be helpful if he showed up at Stormont.

It now appears a virtual certainty that the present six Northern Ireland ministries will be reconfigured into 10, if unionist doubts over the cost can be assuaged.

The extra ones would come from splitting the Department of the Environment in two as well as setting up three new departments: Culture, Heritage, Arts, Tourism and Sport is one and the other two may be Equality and Enterprise/Industrial Development, although there are still some who would wish to see Equality placed under the authority of the First and Deputy First Ministers.

None of this, of course, gets us much closer to resolving the weapons impasse. There have been persistent rumours of a determined intervention by the White House on December 8th, when the leaders of the pro-agreement parties will be in Washington to receive an award from the National Democratic Institute.

However, despite continuing reports that the IRA was about to take some practical steps on decommissioning, usually reliable sources say this is not on the cards in the immediate future. A clarification of the IRA's stance which did not include the word "never" might be a possibility. Senior unionists sometimes muse aloud over the meaning of the word "decommissioning", and it might be possible to arrive at a situation where unionists could say the IRA had effectively decommissioned because the timing devices were in Cork and the explosives in Donegal!

For its part the IRA could say it had not decommissioned but the weapons were "out of commission". Out of such compromises are "win-win" situations created.