Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair can hardly be approaching their next round of discussions with any real belief that they will manage to steer the peace process round the current impasse. Their best shot at resolving the decommissioning conundrum was delivered at Hillsborough, only to be rejected by republicans.
And, from the moment Sinn Fein rejected the Hillsborough Declaration even as a basis for discussion, the two governments have been doing little more than going through the motions in public while, as a matter of necessity, engaging in a concerted damage-limitation exercise behind the scenes. All of this has effectively ruled out any chance of the current impasse being resolved this side of the summer.
That the process has been damaged by the fall-out from Hillsborough is unquestionable. There is a growing sense of an inevitability of failure surrounding the process, which is shared by the public and pro-agreement parties alike. Another high profile failed initiative by the two prime ministers at this time would not only damage their personal credibility but might also finish off the process itself.
Republican rejection of the Hillsborough Declaration did not come as any great surprise to those watching the body language and demeanour of Sinn Fein when Mr Blair and Mr Ahern addressed the world's media on the steps of Hillsborough Castle. The republican delegation looked totally dejected as rumours continued to circulate regarding a deteriorating relationship between them and the Irish Government.
Any remaining doubts concerning republican attitudes to the declaration were soon dispelled when Brian Keenan addressed an Easter Commemoration rally in the border village of Inniskeen a few days later. Referring to the Hillsborough Declaration he said: "I don't know where they get this word decommissioning from. It strikes me that what it means is surrender. There will be no surrender." There we had it in advance of Sinn Fein officially delivering the republican verdict on Hillsborough the following week.
But republicans seem to have gone further than merely rejecting the Hillsborough Declaration. Not only have they indicated an unwillingness to engage in any discussions which might link decommissioning to Sinn Fein's entry to an executive but Brian Keenan and Sinn Fein spokespersons since, have, in fact, come very close to saying that republicans do not accept that decommissioning must take place at any stage of the process.
A purely legal interpretation of the Good Friday Agreement would probably concur with their view but, if the process is to work, then the realpolitik of the situation dictates otherwise. Unionism, meanwhile, has been stretched to its limits. It has watched all the aspects of the agreement it found least palatable advance while those aspects it is most favourably disposed to have yet to be implemented. It is in no mood for compromise on an issue it holds dear to its heart - the question of whether or not republicans should hold office in a Northern Ireland government without any indication of the IRA's future intentions. In the absence of even an acknowledgement by republicanism that they recognise decommissioning as an obligation at some stage then it is difficult to see where we can go from here.
Republicans have handled the decommissioning issue very badly. At an early stage of the process they should have sought ways whereby they could have built confidence in their intentions with the unionist community. This became critical following the arguments surrounding the permanence or otherwise of the first IRA ceasefire and the subsequent bombing of Canary Wharf.
In the absence of any such effort at confidence-building, particularly in the light of the collapse of the first IRA ceasefire, decommissioning was allowed to take on the distorted significance that it has. It became the touchstone for gauging the bona fides of republicanism.
Mainstream unionism does not stand blameless either. By playing up the decommissioning issue from an early stage of this process they have put themselves in a position from which they cannot retreat - even if they were of a mind to.
The absence of any recognition of mutual dependence among those who negotiated the Good Friday Agreement is a fundamental weakness within the Northern Ireland peace process that has helped create the situation we now find ourselves in. All the pro-agreement parties are, in my view, genuinely engaged in trying to fully implement the agreement but some have yet to realise that in order for that implementation to take place each of the parties is dependent to some degree on a measure of good will from the others.
Put simply, we all have to resist the temptation to make political capital from or exploit each other's difficulties because ultimately in a process of conflict resolution our opponents' difficulties swiftly become our own. Decommissioning started as a difficulty for unionism and is now a problem for Sinn Fein and ultimately for the process itself.
There will be no magic formula produced by Mr Blair and Mr Ahern shortly. Indeed the only thing likely to be agreed among the protagonists is the necessity to avoid collapse by ensuring the process has a "soft landing". The hope being that what cannot be resolved now may be resolved later. This "soft landing" will probably take the form of presenting the Assembly with a workplan related to various social and economic issues that will carry it through to the summer recess.
AT THAT stage a review will be undertaken which, in effect, would allow the parties an extended period between July and September to attempt to resolve the current difficulties. This will not be the same as parking the agreement but, in reality, will amount to little more than one step short of that.
Of course, within those summer months we will have Drumcree and, towards the end of August, the report from Chris Patten and the Police Commission. They are hardly likely to improve the chances of finding a resolution in September.
If we are to have any hope of salvaging the peace process then parties must recognise that there are fears and difficulties outside of their own constituencies that have to be addressed. There is no evidence that republicans have ever sought to understand never mind address the concerns of the unionist electorate. During the summer months they should perhaps turn their minds towards this, and if actual decommissioning is impossible then seek to replace it with some other significant confidence-building measure.
Councillor David Adams is spokesman for the UDP