The parties in Northern Ireland, and the rest of the island, stand on the brink of a remarkable and, undoubtedly, realisable development. After a series of stops and starts over the last 19 months, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Mr Peter Mandelson, formally outlined the schedule for full implementation of the Belfast Agreement next week if a sufficient majority of members of the Ulster Unionist Council can be persuaded that their best interests can be served, in the short and longer-term, by following Mr David Trimble's courageous lead on Saturday.
Mr Mandelson plans to call a meeting of the Northern Ireland Assembly next Monday for the purpose of nominating Ministers to the new Executive. He will bring a Devolution Order before the House of Commons next Tuesday to enable power to be vested in the new government. He then plans to have powers transferred to the devolved Executive on Thursday week.
This action will precipitate a whole series of further developments under the Belfast Agreement: the establishment of the North/South Ministerial Council, the British/Irish Council, the six North/South implementation bodies and the Civic Forum. The Government will then be required to exchange letters with the British Government on Thursday week certifying that the Belfast Agreement has come into force. The changes to Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution - reflecting the new constitutional dispensation for Northern Ireland in the eyes of this State - will be made. All of the above developments - historic in our own time - are predicated upon a simultaneous start to the process of the decommissioning of paramilitary arms. Mr Mandelson was forthright on this fundamental principle in democratic politics yesterday. In his responses to questions from Mr Trimble, he offered the assurance that the process of decommissioning "will start, effectively, at the same time as devolution starts". Like Senator George Mitchell, he believed that, with the institutions established and everything up and running, "decommissioning will happen as a natural and essential development of the peace process".
Mr Mandelson created some confusion, however, with his unilateral warning that if there was any default on implementing the devolution or decommissioning elements of the Agreement, the new institutions would be suspended. His remarks, which reflect the reality of the present position, have drawn an immediate response from Sinn Fein to the effect that there is no default mechanism in the Agreement.
With all of the bits of the jig-saw being put on the table, it now remains to be seen whether Mr Trimble can convince sufficient members of the Ulster Unionist Council that the full implementation of the Belfast Agreement, in the words of Mr Mandelson, is "by any standard a good deal for Unionists". His deputy leader, Mr John Taylor, still has to be convinced about what will happen if the Executive falls. It is a signal irony that the Democratic Unionist Party will nominate two Ministers next Monday but they will not attend meetings of the government.
The countdown to the implementation of the Belfast Agreement was described by the former British Prime Minister, Mr John Major, as "a justified gamble" yesterday. He encapsulated, in those words, the mood of the majorities of voters, North and South, who want to embark on a new way forward.