Taoiseach Bertie Ahern is to hold the Government's first official meeting since January with Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams on Friday as expectations of impending IRA decommissioning continue to rise.
Speculation about IRA disarmament is intensifying as Northern Secretary Peter Hain is this morning due to deliver a major speech seeking to address loyalist disaffection with the peace process, but also warning that continuing loyalist violence could be tolerated.
Mr Adams, with Kerry TD Martin Ferris, briefed IRA inmates in Castlerea Prison yesterday on "peace process developments". In the coming days he will engage in a series of events which the British and Irish governments see as preparing the ground for IRA disarmament.
Mr Adams is meeting the Taoiseach, Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern and Minister for Justice Michael McDowell in Dublin on Friday, in what is viewed as a signal from Dublin accepting that the provisional movement is coming in from the cold.
Mr Adams will address a republican conference in south Armagh tomorrow, and a "rally for Irish unity" in Dublin on Saturday.
Mr McDowell made clear yesterday that whatever developments lie ahead there could be no early release for the killers of Det Garda Jerry McCabe. A Sinn Féin spokesman said last night there was no change in the position of the prisoners, stating they would serve their full sentences.
Mr Adams said he and Mr Ferris updated the eight prisoners in Castlerea on developments in the peace process.
"We told them that we were confident that the IRA was going to keep to all of its commitments in the July statement," said Mr Adams.
Meanwhile, Mr Hain is this morning due to deliver a speech which will attempt to bring stability to the volatile loyalist constituency.
He is set to announce a series of intensive talks with reputable loyalist representatives, and to give Political Development Minister David Hanson the added brief of tackling loyalist and nationalist social disadvantage.
Mr Hain is likely to say that in relation to the recent violence he accepts there is a sense of anger and frustration in the unionist and loyalist community.
He is expected to stress, however, that the two fundamental demands of unionism over the past 30 years have been met in the Belfast Agreement: the end of the IRA campaign and agreement on the principle of consent.
He is due to tell unionists that while they may have suspicions about IRA intentions, the decommissioning body and the Independent Monitoring Commission are in place to establish that the IRA lives up to its commitments.
Mr Hain is also expected to make the point that Sinn Féin only made political gains when the IRA moved away from violence, and that, equally, loyalist violence would not pay dividends.
He is due to insist that the British government will assist loyalists who want to improve their communities but he will not allow loyalist paramilitaries terrorise their own or other communities. He is likely to speak on an agreed agenda - accepting there is social disadvantage in many loyalist and nationalist communities, and that both must be supported.