There is a sense among the North's parties - perhaps even in Dublin - that Ian Paisley is not yet ready to do a deal, writes Gerry Moriarty, Northern Editor
An apparently futile exercise in brinkmanship was played out at Parliament Buildings, Stormont, yesterday. After a day of talks, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and British prime minister Tony Blair presented an either/or paper to the Northern parties.
At its heart was a simple well-rehearsed message: elect Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness as First and Deputy First Minister on November 24th or see Assembly members' salaries stopped on the same day and the launch the following month of "new British-Irish partnership arrangements".
The "partnership arrangements" bit is shorthand for beefing up the North-South elements of the Belfast Agreement, the green dimension that unionists don't like.
Mr Ahern and Mr Blair went out of their way to make it clear to the DUP that the Irish and British governments were very serious about the November 24th deadline, against growing pessimism that it is not going to happen.
"I'm outta here after November 24th," Mr Ahern told Dr Paisley.
Now, as everybody with even a moderate interest in the North's interminable political process knows, the return of devolution is down to the Doc.
Therefore, if yesterday was truly the occasion for the Big Push the main task of Mr Ahern and Mr Blair surely was to strong-arm the DUP leader.
So, did Dr Paisley feel chastened after meeting the two leaders?
"Do I look as if I am under pressure, sir?" he laughed, his big face beaming when questioned in the great hall of Parliament Buildings.
"If that meeting that we just had is pressure," said MP Gregory Campbell standing beside Dr Paisley, "we can take it six times every day before breakfast between now and 24th of November."
Why, then, did the Taoiseach and the prime minister come to call on us?
Perhaps SDLP leader Mark Durkan had the best read on it.
"Maybe it was a reality check for the two governments, and I hope that the two governments have been able to use it to make the two parties a bit more realistic about their determination around November."
So, the visit of the two leaders was to concentrate the minds of the DUP and Sinn Féin in particular that they are very serious about November, notwithstanding a gathering feeling that a deal is unlikely by then.
Publicly none of the main players admits it, but privately among DUP members and in the other parties and even in Dublin there is a sense that Dr Paisley is not ready to do a deal, and will hardly be ready by November, or Christmas or the New Year.
Some senior DUP figures hold out possibilities by the spring.
Yet Mr Ahern and Mr Blair have emphasised that they personally cannot wait that long.
They didn't spell it out in black and white but by spring Mr Ahern will be facing, or possibly in, the throes of a general election campaign, while Mr Blair could be on a countdown to retirement as prime minister.
Hence the ultimatum at the end of yesterday, even though Mr Ahern was careful to say that any advances in North-South elements would be non-threatening to unionists if devolution was not restored on November 24th.
The leaders and their officials kept insisting yesterday the deadline was non-negotiable.
A year ago, or perhaps even more recently, talk of "new British-Irish partnership arrangements" would trigger virtual apoplexy among DUP politicians. Yet yesterday Dr Paisley appeared comfortable, almost genial, while his party members and officials bore the air of people who were in for rather a long haul and would not be spooked by hints of joint authority.
Privately, some British and Irish sources, notwithstanding the deadline, were conceding that yesterday was not the key stage in reinstating Stormont. Equally, they said yesterday was not the day to try to "browbeat" the DUP or Sinn Féin.
And judging by the DUP and Sinn Féin press conferences, neither Dr Paisley nor Gerry Adams is ready for dramatic moves to create the chance of a deal, either in terms of agreeing to share power with Sinn Féin or signing up to policing.
It was the same old lines from the DUP and Sinn Féin yesterday, each blaming the other for the deadlock, each trying to position themselves so that if the Assembly collapses in late November the other would carry the blame.
So, a lot of huffing and puffing yesterday but no discernible movement.
However, Mr Ahern and Mr Blair are planning to return to our "dreary steeples" in October, shortly after the Independent Monitoring Commission makes its latest pronouncement on IRA activity. That's when they hope real progress will be achieved.
In the meantime they left the MLAs with a timetable of work to create some chance of an accommodation by November 24th.
As Mr Blair said yesterday, the IMC report is "the key" in determining whether there should be a Sinn Féin/DUP deal. It is expected to be positive, and, unlike yesterday, it should put genuine pressure on Dr Paisley to move.
At the very least it should make it difficult for him to justify not going into government with Mr Adams.
There are still almost five months to the deadline, and nothing should be ruled out. However the signs remain that if Mr Ahern and Mr Blair are seeking a genuine answer on whether Dr Paisley would share power with Sinn Féin, they may, perforce, have to find some extra energy for that final push next spring.