In the fraught circumstances of the suspension of the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive it is easy to be negative. Much has been lost, whether temporarily or otherwise. But it is important also to inventory what has been gained over the past five years. There is peace - more or less - with the main paramilitaries on continuing ceasefire. There is the framework of a new settlement, endorsed by the votes of the people of Ireland - north and south. There is the heartening reality that, for nine weeks, elected ministers from diverse ends of the political spectrum worked successfully in government together.
The foundations of the peace process remain in place and are there to be built upon again. Yesterday, the Secretary of State, Mr Peter Mandelson, said he hoped the suspension of the institutions would be short-lived. Government sources in Dublin indicate that they believe the institutions could be restored in days. But there may be significant differences between the two governments in determining the surest and swiftest way back - just as much as the governments were not at one on the necessity of suspension. Whereas the British Government has been able to give effect to the suspension of the institutions by act of parliament, Dublin considers itself trammelled by the fact that the arrangements entered into under the Belfast Agreement have been underwritten by referendum and form part of Irish constitutional law. This may not prove unhelpful in maintaining effective linkages between the Government and the republican movement. But the somewhat bizarre situation thus presents itself that in the eyes of the London government there is no devolved authority in operation within Northern Ireland, whereas from Dublin's position that authority has not been suspended.
If there is suspension, the consequential step would be a review of the Agreement. The Government believes that it is not necessary to go into a review and that it will be possible to build on the IRA statement of last Friday, enabling Gen de Chastelain to report IRA compliance with the terms of the Agreement. Writing yesterday in this newspaper, the Taoiseach referred to "the deep significance" of that part of the de Chastelain report of last Friday which detailed a declaration from the IRA of its willingness to "initiate a comprehensive process to put arms beyond use".
Hopefully, the Taoiseach is right. The IRA statement is significant in that it brings the organisation to an acknowledgment of the necessity of decommissioning. This is the point, of course, which the other participants believed they had reached when the Agreement was approved in April, 1998, and before it emerged that the IRA did not consider itself bound by what Sinn Fein had signed up to. Beyond this, the latest IRA statement to Gen de Chastelain could mean everything or it could mean nothing. The IRA's "comprehensive process" will take place in the "context of the full implementation of the Good Friday Agreement and in the context of the removal of the causes of conflict".
Had the IRA given Gen de Chastelain a start date for this "comprehensive process" it is very probable that the institutions would still be functioning. And it is impossible to conceive of Mr Blair's government or the Ulster Unionists being willing to revive them without such a start date. Put plainly, the ball rests at the IRA's feet, as it has since the decommissioning issue moved centre-stage in this process. The restoration of the Assembly and the Executive are within the gift of the republican movement. It can only be hoped that the bestowing of that gift takes place sooner rather than later.