Sinn Féin is pressing for an enhanced and highly visible Dublin role in Northern Ireland affairs to counter the threatened political stalemate resulting from the DUP's Assembly election victory.
While ready to test the DUP's "bona fides" in the upcoming review of the Belfast Agreement, the republican party is urging London and Dublin to adopt an aggressive and pro-active carrot-and-stick approach to the Rev Ian Paisley's political ascendancy within unionism.
It is understood this would mean that - alongside the review starting next month - there should be high-profile meetings of the Anglo-Irish Inter-Governmental Conference in Belfast and Dublin. These would mark a renewed push to implement commitments in the British-Irish Joint Declaration of last April on a range of issues including demilitarisation, criminal justice reform, on-the-run prisoners, and the structure of the North's Human Rights Commission.
In addition, Sinn Féin leaders are signalling their eagerness to resume their pre-election discussion with both governments about the unresolved issue of policing and the party's attitude to joining the Policing Board and endorsing the Police Service of Northern Ireland. Senior party sources told The Irish Times there was no reason why the British government should not push ahead with plans to devolve policing powers to the Stormont Assembly, even while it remains suspended, provided outstanding difficulties can be resolved.
Sinn Féin is determined there should be progress on the implementation of all other aspects of the agreement "on Dr Paisley's watch", so making clear that the DUP's electoral triumph over the Ulster Unionists does not constitute "a veto". This argument has already been put to the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, and is certain to form the core of Sinn Féin president Mr Gerry Adams's message to the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, when they meet in Downing Street next Wednesday.
Sinn Féin's national chairman Mr Mitchel McLaughlin,in London, insisted Dr Paisley's victory required London and Dublin to spell out "the options to the rejectionists". Confirming the party's impatience for renewed political progress, he said: "No longer can Mr Blair use David Trimble's precarious hold on leadership of majority unionism to justify prevarication. He must act decisively to disavow rejectionists of the notion that they can renegotiate the agreement."
In common with the UUP, it is believed Sinn Féin is pressing for the completion of the review by March. Party sources say it should be possible to establish "within a month or so" whether or not the DUP is serious about political engagement and whether its "alternative" proposals are viable or acceptable. Anticipating a negative conclusion, Sinn Féin, the UUP and other parties are also believed to be considering changes to the Assembly's cross-community voting rules to enable the appointment of a power-sharing Executive despite DUP opposition.
Amid speculation that leading dissident MP Mr Jeffrey Donaldson may quit the UUP and join the DUP, there is renewed interest in the possibility that the six Alliance members could redesignate themselves as "unionists" for the purpose of electing Mr Trimble first minister.
Alliance leader Mr David Ford has always maintained his party would never repeat the redesignation exercise which enabled Mr Trimble's re-election as first minister in October 2001 after he lost his unionist majority. However, in a situation in which the DUP's unionist majority has a veto over the election of first and deputy first ministers, the belief in some quarters is that a deal giving it ministerial office could persuade Alliance to act again to assert the primacy of the overall pro-agreement majority in the Assembly.