Analysis: Impetus is at last being injected into the all-party talks, writes Gerry Moriarty, Northern Editor
Politics needed to shift into a faster gear, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, said at last Thursday's multi-party talks. And that's precisely what happened yesterday with the British government's publication of draft new policing legislation.
The Northern Secretary, Mr Paul Murphy, gave the SDLP what Tony Blair promised at Weston Park and dangled a substantial carrot in front of Sinn Féin: let the IRA retire from active business and former IRA prisoners will be allowed on to the District Policing Partnerships (DPPs) while republican west Belfast will have its very own mini-DPP.
It bears repeating that one of the biggest political prizes still to be won in Northern Ireland is cross-community support for the Police Service of Northern Ireland. The logic of Sinn Féin joining the Policing Board should be that the IRA was no longer a threat, because how could it threaten a police force supported by Sinn Féin?
Sinn Féin is still watching and waiting before deciding whether to join the Policing Board, but after yesterday there is a significantly better chance of Sinn Féin making that huge emotional and historical leap.
As the parties cut their way through the legalese of the draft legislation they will find issues to complain about, but yesterday marked yet another important milestone in the peace process.
Over a year ago, the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, said that the Weston Park proposals on policing provided the "spirit and substance" of the Patten reform package.
Sinn Féin's chief negotiator, Mr Martin McGuinness, wants a lot more carrot, but conceded that "there is no doubt whatsoever that progress has been made".
Mr Murphy, in an article in today's Irish Times, also held out the additional incentive of policing and criminal justice being devolved to Northern Ireland should the institutions be restored.
On the margins, Sinn Féin and the SDLP will fight their long-running political battle over who won what in terms of policing. That's called electioneering. But in terms of the central picture there is no doubt that these proposals offer substantial gains for nationalism.
For the SDLP, it ensured that the PSNI and its chief constable, Hugh Orde, will now be more accountable to the Policing Board and the Police Ombudsman. In addition, as promised at Weston Park, the legislation places greater emphasis on community policing and allows gardaí to be seconded to the PSNI with full policing powers.
That legislation, with some possible amendments, will be enacted regardless. Because it focuses so much on beefing up the accountability powers of politicians in general, Ulster Unionists just might be able to grudgingly live with these proposals.
They obviously have far greater difficulty with the second list of contingent proposals from Mr Murphy. Sinn Féin is promised that convicted IRA members will be allowed to join the DPPs and that the four sub-groups of the main Belfast DPP will have enhanced powers.
This means that west, north, south and east Belfast will have virtual free-standing bodies which will hold the police to account locally. This is obviously highly sensitive, since unionists in particular complain that this could mean the IRA dictating to the police in west Belfast.
But this is all conditional on the IRA carrying out, as Tony Blair put it, "acts of completion", a point Mr David Trimble alluded to yesterday. He expressed concerns about the proposals, but said that if the IRA carried out a "genuine" act of completion, then that would "change the context".
There is still much hard bargaining to be done over demilitarisation, safeguarding the institutions once they are restored, clarifying what Mr Blair means by an IRA "act of completion" and determining whether this is possible.
Round-table talks are due to resume at Stormont this week, but may have to be postponed until next week because of some politicians' difficulties over diary arrangements. When Mr Cowen, Mr Murphy, Mr Trimble, Mr Gerry Adams and Mr Mark Durkan finally do regroup, they will be working to a much more concentrated agenda now that the policing nettle has been grasped.