ON FIRST reading at least, this looks as good a deal as Dublin could have hoped for. And there is no doubt Irish team won important battles in the fraught 48 hours pre-announcement.

Tanaiste, Mr Spring conceded no doubts as the press conference under way at the Northern Office. The package agreed after days of tortuous negotiations, he declared, represented the best basis we can offer for meaningful, serious, comprehensive and inclusive negotiations".

As to whether the IRA would enable Sinn Fein's participation in the process, Mr Spring was equally ro bust. "If people want reasons to be at those talks they are contained within this documentation."

The documents contained the British/Irish proposals for the opening scenario, as well as a draft agenda and procedural guidelines for the "substantive all party negotiations" due to start in Belfast on Monday some 28 pages of detail.

But the headline announcement was that the two governments had invited former Senator George Mitchell to be the independent chairman of the process. And as reported first in The Irish Times, Mr Mitchell's two colleagues from the international body, Gen John de Chastelain and Mr Harri Holkeri, will chair subsidiary strands of the talks process Gen de Chastelain will chair the Strand Two North/South negotiations.

The two governments have postponed crunch decisions on the decommissioning of paramilitary weapons at least until a "review period" at the end of September and Mr Mitchell will chair a decommissioning sub committee, whose work is intended to proceed in parallel to the negotiations on the issues in the three (internal, North/South and London/Dublin) strands.

As journalists grappled with the detail and wondered what, if anything, it all meant some senior Irish sources expressed confidence that it could "do the trick". Mr Spring made it clear that an 11th hour ceasefire would suffice to bring Sinn Fein to the table. And some senior unionists were last night nervously pondering the possibility that the republicans might yet be there if not next Monday, then soon thereafter.

Certainly the sense that Dublin had won ground in the negotiations was heightened by the angry clam our from the DUP, and by the threat that Mr Terry Dicks MP might resign the Conservative whip and reduce Mr Major's government to minority status.

The Ulster Unionists Leader David Trimble, gave no such sign of panic. But he was in combative form, serving notice on the two governments that he may well resist their "proposals" and again insisting that he would not accept Mr Mitchell as some form of "political supremo". If that was what the two governments had in mind, he declared, they had "another think coming".

But there can be little doubt that this is exactly what the two governments have in mind. And there are emerging signs of harsh criticisms of. Mr Trimble, in Ulster Unionist and Conservative pro-Union ranks, as some of his supporters conclude he has been fighting the wrong battle.

Over the past few days it has been increasingly clear that Mr Trimble was resisting Mr Mitchell's appointment as chairman of the Strand Two talks. But his counter proposal (taken up by the British) that that job should go to Gen de Chastelain was never in itself a problem for Dublin. The Irish concern was that Mr Mitchell's role should not be politically constrained that his role, in simple terms, should be that of "peacemaker".

And it was always clear that contrary to unionist expectations Mr Mitchell would not accept a job limiting him to the discharge of the unionist agenda on the decommissioning of weapons. Once the idea developed that Mr Mitchell should chair the plenary sessions, Dublin's priority was to ensure that the plenary would be the driving force for the process as a whole. That is what London and Dublin have in terms, agreed.

WEDNESDAY'S mini crisis resulted from Mr Major's apparent decision that he could not accept such an over arching role for the American. But the "iron cast" agreement Dublin thought it had on Tuesday night was, according to Irish sources, reinstated when Mr Major and Mr Bruton finally spoke on the telephone late last night.

None of which is to say Mr Mitchell has unlimited powers, or that it's all bad news for Mr Trimble. Parallel decommissioning trenchantly rejected in a succession of IRA statements is still on the agenda, as are all the other "confidence building" measures contained in the Mitchell report.

If Sinn Fein joins the talks, the party will still be asked for an exclusive commitment to purely peaceful and democratic means and for evidence of intent to "honour" that commitment "before, during and after" the negotiation process. In Mr Trimble's terms, that still means the end of punishment beatings, the repudiation for themselves and others of the right to recourse to violence, the dismantling of all paramilitary organisations and a timetable for the handing over or destruction of weapons.

There is no hint of a timetable in the proposals announced yesterday. And while Irish sources insist Mr Mitchell intends to have Sinn Fein sign up for parallel decommissioning, Mr Trimble will be uneasy at yesterday's focus on the linkage between a decommissioning process and political development. The ground rules demand "sufficient consensus for progress on any mother in these negotiations, and Mr Trimble still commands a powerful veto.

But he may well reflect that, in the final months of its term, he cannot presume that the British government will stand shoulder to shoulder with him. He must suspect London has finally wriggled off the "Washington 3" decommissioning hook. And he knows Mr Major, earlier this week, was urging greater flexibility than he left able or willing to supply.

In the aftermath of last week's watershed election, some unionists fear London may have made a further psychological adjustment in its attitude to the North. And come the opening policy statements during the first plenary, they may discover again contrary to their expectation that London has not abandoned the joint framework approach.

For the new unionist leader presiding over an unhappy inquest into last week's election reverses and facing a bitter battle with his rivals in a general election now less than 12 months away that is an unhappy position to be in. But the reduction of Mr Trimble's room for manoeuvre (never mind the continuing absence of an IRA ceasefire) serves as a powerful counter to the high hopes expressed in London.

British and Irish sources believe yesterday's deal affords a real opportunity to move the situation forward. Senior Irish figures, in particular, believe the republican position on decommissioning could be dramatically changed given three months of serious negotiation. But asked if he believed that meaningful negotiation was on offer, one source told the powerful truth. "I just don't know."