MR John Major will attempt to breathe new life into the Northern Ireland talks process when he addresses the Conservative Party conference in Bournemouth this morning.
The British Prime Minister is to devote a substantial section of his speech to his personal commitment to the process - and his determination that it should move ahead without Sinn Fein.
A similar determination to proceed with the talks process, with or without Sinn Fein, was also signalled by the Taoiseach in the Dail yesterday as the only available option for movement in the ailing peace process.
Indicating that Sinn Fein's participation was by no means indispensable for the negotiations to proceed and agreement to be reached, Mr Bruton said that "no one, armed or unarmed, has a veto."
But, he added, a "fully inclusive agreement, including Sinn Fein, would, of course, be preferable."
British ministers believe that Monday's IRA bomb attack on the army headquarters at Lisburn has significantly altered the political situation and - against a background of growing public scepticism - that the parties can move swiftly into substantive negotiations.
Next week's scheduled meetings at Stormont are assuming critical importance if the Ulster Unionists and the SDLP are to signal a determination to move the process forward.
Mr Bruton stated that if republicans wanted to be taken seriously as democrats, they would have to abandon the tactical use of violence for good.
The Sinn Fein chairman, Mr Mitchel McLaughlin, in an interview yesterday, admitted that republicans now suffered from a "credibility problem" and acknowledged that a renewed IRA ceasefire was the best way to reestablish trust.
No new initiatives to break the deadlock on decommissioning or an IRA ceasefire were offered by Government or Opposition leaders during the low-key, and predictable, day-long Dail debate on Northern Ireland.
The Taoiseach resisted pressure to sever official contacts with Sinn Fein, while acknowledging that acts like the Lisburn bombing made it much more difficult, in the democratic and political sense, to continue to keep open-direct channels of communication.
He also announced that the Government intended to publish its decommissioning legislation "at an early date", as a further demonstration to unionists of its commitment and good faith on this issue.
Mr Bruton devoted a considerable proportion of his speech to giving assurances to loyalists, and to unionists generally, that there was "no pan-nationalist front" intent on undermining their identity.
In preparing for the substantive negotiations they wanted to see starting very soon in the talks, he added, the Government continued to study intensively possible amendments to Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution "which would emphasise that it is agreement between people - and not territorial aggrandisement - that we are seeking."
In his address in Bournemouth today, Mr Major will again stress his opposition to suggestions that the talks process should be postponed until after a British general election.
But ministers recognise the collapse of the loyalist ceasefire would make political progress less likely, and the Prime Minister will again appeal to them not to return to violence.