The public is tiring of the endless search for a devolution deal, writes Dan Keenan, Northern News Editor
Day in, day out, the best government officials from Ireland and Britain strive with the Northern parties to find a formula to restore devolution.
The public is finding it all increasingly tedious.
This triggers two major questions. Why bother? And is it not wiser to let the Welsh Northern Secretary and his English junior ministers govern because local politicians clearly can't?
Not one protester took to the streets in October 2002 when the British government reimposed direct rule. Many Assembly members fulminated as the then Northern Secretary, Dr John Reid, told politicians to choose between violence and democracy.
The public reaction was to have no reaction.
A public attitude survey later carried out by Queen's University and the University of Ulster confirmed that the Northern electorate simply rolled its eyes or shrugged its shoulders.
Some 50 per cent, including 41 per cent of Catholics and 56 per cent of Protestants, told pollsters they "didn't mind" the suspension.
Just 37 per cent - 50 per cent Catholics and 29 per cent Protestants - were "sorry". Only 7 per cent pronounced themselves "pleased" and 6 per cent couldn't muster an opinion.
The two universities further reported that people remained underwhelmed about the record of the 108-member Assembly and the 10 powersharing Executive ministers.
Just 12 per cent of respondents in 2003 said Stormont had achieved "a lot", a figure on the slide from 26 per cent 12 months earlier.
Just under half, 47 per cent, and equal proportions of Protestants and Catholics, believed the Stormont institutions had achieved "little".
A further third said Assembly members had achieved "nothing", nearly double the numbers who gave the same answer in 2002.
The war-weary and by now peace-process-weary electorate appears to have had its fill of local democracy Stormont-style as evidence gathers that direct rule is working better than ever
The economy is performing relatively well, reform of the public sector is under way, public spending is up and unemployment is at an all-time low.
Many Border towns, once the bleakest areas outside Belfast, are thriving dual-currency market places.
Property is booming. House price rises topped 13 per cent earlier this year, but the market has since cooled to more sustainable single-digit levels.
Mr Gordon Brown, the British Chancellor, announced public spending rises of some £1 billion for Northern Ireland last summer. By 2008, the UK as a whole will finance the North's 1.68 million citizens to the tune of £9.5 billion every year.
Much of that will feed into an overall economy recovering from the impact of conflict and restructuring after the loss of traditional industries.
There are now 37,000 unemployed, according to the government's preferred indicator, representing a record low of around 5 per cent.
Manufacturing, never a recent strength, is also up. Factory output increased by 4 per cent last year.
Last week, a software company announced more than 660 jobs in Belfast, Strabane, Co Tyrone, and Derry. Northbrook Technology said the choice of locations was influenced by previous recruitment of "well-educated and easily-motivated people keen to develop careers in the IT industry".
Reforms continue apace, although not to the liking of everyone.
The PSNI's reforms have pleased international monitors, the British and Irish governments and sufficient Catholics who have applied as recruits.
Levels of "ordinary" crime are down, according to the police. Paramilitarism in certain areas is waning, according to the Independent Monitoring Commission. Organised crime, the lingering hangover from the Troubles is being tackled, according to the Assets Recovery Agency.
The justice system is being overhauled, and commissions on human rights and equality are up and running - though not perfectly. A Bill of Rights is overdue.
The North's legendary elephantine public administration sector is facing a combination of the review and the axe. The civil service will see 20,000 job cuts across the North, Scotland and Wales as the Northern Secretary ponders how to reduce stunning levels of over-administration.
Currently, Northern Ireland has three MEPs - a higher than normal per capita ratio - 18 Westminster MPs, 108 part-paid Assembly members, and some 600 councillors on 26 local bodies. These could well be cut to some 300 councillors on perhaps as few as seven councils as part of an overhaul.
There are hordes of quangos, health trusts, education and library boards and other bodies governing public life, all of them now under the critical eye of the review of public administration.
On a visual level at least, Northern Ireland is being gradually "normalised", to use government jargon.
British troops are planned to be returned to pre-Troubles levels and kept largely to barracks. Police stations are being changed from Checkpoint Charlie fortresses into more citizen-friendly facilities.
New buildings, tidier streets, some shiny public transport and the emergence of something approaching a pavement café culture is helping to make the place look more at ease.
For all that, political fissures still run deep. But for many Protestants/unionists, direct rule appears to be something they are content with.
Feeling sore in their view that the Belfast Agreement rewarded nationalists much more than themselves, only 28 per cent would vote Yes if the agreement referendum was to be rerun.
Catholics, on the other hand, believe by a 3-1 ratio that the agreement is still worth supporting.
Sinn Féin and the SDLP continue to advocate belief in the agreement, and address it with a tablets-of-stone reverence.
The British broadsheet newspapers are gradually withdrawing their reporters from Belfast, or basing them in Dublin where more interesting things happen.
Northern Ireland's old divisions and its tedious political stalemate regarding restoration of Stormont have limited news appeal.
The people of Northern Ireland seem equally tired of it, but they seem resigned to living with the consequences. That acceptance, however grudging, of direct rule might just persuade politicians that it is in their interests to do a deal - and quickly.