The British and Irish governments are forging ahead with plans to accelerate the Northern Ireland talks process. They will resume discussions later this week in an attempt to present potential "heads of agreement" to the multi-party talks when they resume in Belfast on Monday.
While the process is scheduled to run at least until May, officials are talking of mid-to-end March as the target date for an outline agreement on the shape of an overall political settlement.
The ambitious attempt to shorten the talks timetable is a direct response to political and security developments over Christmas, and an acknowledgement that continued political drift could see the situation in the North slip out of control.
Despite last night's developments inside the Maze prison and continuing uncertainty about the loyalist ceasefires, the determination to kick-start the talks process has been bolstered by Monday's "constructive" meeting between the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, and the Ulster Unionist leader, Mr David Trimble, and signals that the UUP leadership remains reasonably confident about the general thrust and direction of Mr Blair's policy.
The need to put the Stormont talks on the "fast-track" will be underlined later today by Mr Andrews, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, in a speech in Belfast.
The Minister is to meet members of the Alliance Party and the SDLP, in addition to his potentially crucial meeting with a delegation from the Progressive Unionist Party, led by Mr David Ervine and Mr Billy Hutchinson.
In a speech at the Twin Spires Centre in west Belfast, Mr Andrews will say: "The time for moving from the general to the specific [in the talks process] begins next Monday." Echoing the Taoiseach's call at the weekend for movement beyond the current "shadow-boxing" to the substance of the negotiation, Mr Andrews will call on the parties "to rededicate themselves to the profound purpose for which the talks exist".
Sources confirmed last night that Friday's scheduled meeting of the Liaison Group of British and Irish officials is likely to be dominated by the search for agreement on a joint paper identifying the likely heads of agreement to be considered by the parties soon after the multi-party talks resume.
It is understood the likely outcome of the talks process similarly dominated Mr Trimble's 75minute meeting with Mr Blair at Downing Street on Monday night. But sources last night confirmed there was as yet no agreed British-Irish text.
The sources confirmed that, as previously reported in The Irish Times, Mr Blair had hoped to have a draft agreed in advance of his meeting with Sinn Fein leaders on December 11th.
However, Dublin is understood to have resisted the British draft, on the basis that its emphasis on devolution and a possible Council of the Islands was not sufficiently "balanced" by language defining the context for future North-South relationships.
Last night one source said the issue of justice and equality, and "the manner in which it is addressed", was also an important element in the ongoing Anglo-Irish dialogue.