Agreement between the parties on policing and powersharing would represent a momentous step for both communities in the North, President Mary McAleese said yesterday, but the opportunity was "time-limited".
Speaking in Áras an Úachtaráin at the presentation of new year's greetings by diplomats from 55 countries, Mrs McAleese touched on international topics before turning to Northern Ireland.
"Closer to home," she said, "we in Ireland edge closer and closer to triumph over our island's long history of adversity. Many people can take credit for the considerable changes which have seen the IRA forswear violence and commit exclusively to the path of peaceful politics. Paramilitary loyalism has still clearly some distance to go yet, but the steps already taken by loyalists towards peaceful transformation are decisive, irreversible and encouraging.
"It is very sad that the persuasive voice of David Ervine will be absent but we have every reason to hope, expect and demand that his vision of a shared, egalitarian Northern Ireland will soon be realised. The political parties who will work together to create that Northern Ireland know precisely what they have to do to bridge what is now a relatively small gap between them. Progress on the gap issues of policing and powersharing will represent a truly momentous and historic step for both communities in Northern Ireland. You could say they are being given the opportunity of a lifetime and let us hope that that opportunity will be taken in the lifetime of the opportunity - because it is time-limited."
Noting that the Middle East peace process was high on the international political agenda, she expressed the hope for renewed stability and reconciliation in Lebanon.
The Papal Nuncio and Dean of the Diplomatic Corps, Archbishop Giuseppe Lazzarotto, said: "In the North, in recent months, there have been important developments that raise hopes for a more peaceful and harmonious future: one of greater mutual understanding and collaboration between the two communities. But those are developments that still await a definitive institutional confirmation."