Opening positions: The two governments began talks yesterday with "no plans to stay beyond the evening", according to Mr Tony Blair's official spokesman. "The important thing is to see just how far we can get." The Sinn Féin delegation claimed the talks were the most intensive of the last five years, since the signing of the Belfast Agreement.
"This is the end game," said Mr Mitchel McLaughlin. "Within the last couple of days some movement has emerged on key issues I think that if we have the political will from all the participants here today than it is possible that we can put together a package."
A Sinn Féin spokesman said the delegation was in Hillsborough to do a deal. "And if not today, then tomorrow, and if not tomorrow then the next day."
However it was clear following the first talks sessions that issues relating to paramilitary arms and campaigns, and the question of sanctions against those who default, were uppermost.
A principal member of the SDLP privately told The Irish Times that on a day when parties were trying to resurrect devolution it was typical of the process that the concentration was on the line to be taken if participants broke their word.
The Ulster Unionist leader, Mr David Trimble, said he was in Hillsborough simply to get clarification from republicans "that their war was over and isn't going to come back again".
The British pointed to "a real engagement between the parties in the last few weeks", and that there was "a general acceptance of the need to get devolution up and running again".
However, it was admitted that the core issue now, as in last October when the Stormont institutions were suspended, was confidence among the main participants.
"The key issue goes back to the one that prompted [suspension in] October, which is trust," Mr Blair's official spokesman told The Irish Times.
"Everybody wants to be sure that others not only live up to their own responsibilities but that all sides live up to theirs as well.
"It's how you find a key to a guarantee for all side, and I stress all sides, that everyone is going to live up to their commitments."
He said that acts of completion had to mean what they say. "Acts of completion means the end," he added.
The UUP leader, on his way into the talks, said he sought a republican declaration about the IRA's intentions "and to see the evidence of that worked out in practice".
Linking this issue to progress across the board, he added: "Only if we get clarity on that will we be in a position to address other issues."
He said this was critical for unionists. "We need to have some mechanism to ensure that if the Assembly is restored, that it can run smoothly and will not face crisis in future. We came into this with a safety net, the community needs a safety net for the future too."
Mr Trimble said unless there was a declaration that the war was over, then it would mean that the republican movement hadn't committed itself to exclusively peaceful and democratic means.
The SDLP leader, Mr Mark Durkan, said there was a need for "very real undertakings" on the part of all parties if there was to be an "understandable and reliable confidence that we are now about the business of the full implementation of the agreement".
He said the process had dragged on too long and that politics had gone off at a tangent with new problems. "People want an end to that," he said.
"People don't want to see us coming in and out of here, in and out of Government Buildings, in and out of Downing Street. People want to see us going back into the institutions to which we were elected to work together to implement the agreement in full. They want to see that now."