Deadlines come, deadlines go, but the Northern Ireland political process goes on and on, writes Mark Brennock.
On Tuesday in the Dáil, the Taoiseach seemed to warn of potential catastrophe if final agreement was not reached yesterday between the DUP on the one hand, and Sinn Féin and the IRA on the other.
"This will not come around again for some considerable time," he warned.
"We will be in a difficult position. People will pull back from their stated positions. It will be difficult to get back to where we are for many reasons."
But yesterday he said he hoped to reach agreement very soon, possibly by Christmas. Government sources said the Taoiseach had instructed his exhausted officials to throw themselves into a renewed search for agreement within a couple of days.
Another solemn deadline has passed and already this is being portrayed as not quite as calamitous as initially suggested. Nobody seriously expects a deal by Christmas, but contrary to prior warnings, political activity has not yet been suspended for the next year or more.
Of course, Mr Blair will be distracted by a British general election next year, and by Britain's presidency of the EU and the G8 group of countries.
The Northern parties will be distracted by the need to maximise their support in next year's local government elections.
But Dublin sources yesterday echoed the view of the Taoiseach and the British Prime Minister that a deal was very close, and that it is in effect held up by one simple issue: How to reconcile the DUP demand for photos of decommissioning with the republicans' insistence that nothing be done to suggest they have been humiliated. By publishing the documents surrounding the virtual deal, the governments hope that the people of Northern Ireland will see that the solution is something they could support.
They hope this, in turn, will ease the pressure on the DUP and Sinn Féin not to compromise from the more hardline elements of their support base.
Two views on Sinn Féin's intentions are discernible within the Government parties at the moment.
The first is that the IRA could not complete decommissioning, accept the publication of photographs, and not cause irreparable divisions among their supporters. However, according to this argument, they choose not to partly because they believe the possession of weapons still gives them additional bargaining power, and also because it wins them support among young people attracted to the whiff of sulphur, but too young to remember the carnage caused by that sulphur.
The other view is that Sinn Féin is very keen to get into government in the Republic sooner or later, believing that being in power north and south will give it a further electoral boost.
Therefore the quicker the weapons are disposed of for good, the quicker they will be through any "decontamination period" required by the establishment parties in the Republic.
In the meantime, the Taoiseach was said yesterday to be deeply annoyed that despite his exposing the Government to political battering over the possible release of the killers of Det Garda Jerry McCabe, he has secured no agreement in return.
Last May the Government made it clear the release of the McCabe killers was on the cards if there was to be a deal. Last night on RTÉ's Prime Time programme, Mr Ahern criticised the manner in which Fine Gael has put the issue at the centre of public debate again, highlighting for its own political advantage the part of that deal that would be least palatable for people in the Republic.
The issue has opened the bitterest division between the leaderships of the two parties for a considerable period of time.