GOVERNMENT sources said last night it "must he assumed" that Dublin and London were actively preparing legislation on the verification of paramilitary arms decommissioning.
The leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, Mr David Trimble and the deputy leader, Mr John Taylor will be in Dublin tonight to meet the leaders of the three Government parties. Mr Taylor, said the verification legislation would have to be put in place if the peace process was not to be delayed.
Government sources agreed that such legislation would be required, in keeping with the recommendations in the Mitchell report. The February 28th Anglo Irish communique stipulates that the participants in all party negotiations set for June 10th must "address" the Mitchell, proposals "at the beginning".
A subcommittee or some similar body might be appointed to deal with this, in parallel with the main negotiations.
Any government in this situation would be unwise not to have at least some preliminary legislative work done. But nobody knew at this point what form the decommissioning would take.
Therefore, it would not be possible to legislate in detail on this issue ahead of June 10th. But enabling legislation could he put in place, leaving the mechanisms for decommissioning subject to regulation, the sources said.
The Government will be stressing to the UUP delegation that there must be a "North South dimension" to whatever agreement emerges.
"We are determined that the all party negotiations will take place "within the context of a three stranded approach." But the question of Articles 2 and 3 was a matter for the people of the Republic and the Government would not be going into this issue tonight: "We're not about to start discussing that."
However, Mr Taylor told The Irish Times that Articles 2 and 3 must "come to the top of the agenda" and be addressed by all the parties in the Republic.
He had not received a copy of the final report of the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation on this issue. The UUP would also be raising the issue of security. He had crossed the Border for a church service at Monaghan yesterday and there had been no security on either side.
The February communique had stated very clearly that decommissioning would be the first issue to be addressed on June 10th. Legislation would have to be on the statute books in Ireland and the UK so that, once agreement was reached in the negotiations, it could be implemented without delay. "We can't move on to other subjects until that issue is addressed."
The Taoiseach has described tonight's meeting, which takes place in Government Buildings, as "historic", but Mr Taylor said that unionist leaders had been meeting Irish governments ever since the foundation of Northern Ireland.