The British and Irish governments in Dublin today will review what progress has been made in the multi-party talks aimed at restoring devolution. They will also try to define what steps they should take to drive the negotiations forward in the new year.
As a first step the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, and the Northern Secretary, Mr Paul Murphy, will try to bring to an end the dispute over the continuation of the North-South implementation bodies that has angered unionists so all parties can concentrate on achieving a political breakthrough.
Mr Cowen and Mr Murphy are expected to issue a joint communiqué after today's British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference at Farmleigh, formally stating that the special Dáil legislation set in place to ensure the implementation bodies could continue are a temporary arrangement.
The governments are anxious to put this issue to bed so the pressing matters of persuading the IRA to carry out the "acts of completion" requested by Mr Tony Blair and obtaining assurances from unionists that they will not undermine the Belfast Agreement institutions can be achieved.
Dublin and London sources confirmed that the two governments wanted the North-South bodies row concluded so that tomorrow's multi-party talks in Belfast can properly concentrate on restoring the Stormont institutions.
The sources said there was official concern that the parties with most to deliver, particularly Sinn Féin and the Ulster Unionists, were operating to a narrow agenda. "If all the parties are to trust each other then they need to take a global rather than a narrow view," said one source.
Tomorrow's talks will also take place against a backdrop of census returns showing a narrowing of the disparity between the Catholic and Protestant populations in Northern Ireland. Some reports have suggested the Catholic population could be as high as 46 per cent, but this may be too high. It is understood a figure in the lower mid-40s may be more accurate.
Ulster Unionist MLA Mr Roy Beggs junior complained about "crude sectarian headcounting" over the census. "Every 10 years at the time when the census figures are about to be published the usual suspects come out with their sectarian demography argument.
"They make the illogical quantum leap that growing numbers of Roman Catholics as stated on the census returns equals the end of the Union. This totally sectarian argument assumes that all Catholics automatically support the end of the Union and the creation of an all-Ireland republic, as if it were part of their genetic make-up," he said. "It is the job of Ulster Unionist politicians like myself to convince that section of our population who belong to the Roman Catholic denomination, as well as Protestants and non-believers, that their future belongs together in the pluralist, multi-faith United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland."
His fellow Ulster Unionist MLA, the Rev Robert Coulter called on republicans to take dramatic action to restore the Executive and Assembly. He said "hundreds of thousands of people" wanted devolution to return.