The Taoiseach Bertie Ahern will meet the leadership of Sinn Féin today to discuss the progress of devolution and power-sharing in the North.
The 4 p.m.meeting precedes Mr Ahern's talks with unionist representatives tomorrow and 'roadmap' talks with British Prime Minister Tony Blair next week.
Mr Ahern and Mr Blair are both anxious to make ground and are preparing to issue a take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum to both sides.
This could mean the restoration of the Assembly in shadow form - a route opposed by Sinn Féin - with a deadline set for full restoration. The latter being an option equally unpalatable to the Democratic Unionist Party.
"We need to have movement by the summer. Things can't continue as they are. Peter Hain held [ telephone] talks with Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair in the past 48 hours, and there is now an emerging consensus of what needs to be done to break the political deadlock," one senior source told The Irish Times yesterday.
This could involve a demand that the executive be fully re-established before the Assembly elections scheduled for May next year, or a pledge from the parties that they would enter a power-sharing executive directly after the Assembly elections.
In the meantime the Assembly could operate in shadow form from the autumn.