Well, they talk the talk but did they walk the walk? Was the three-day summit at Leeds Castle a success or a failure? It didn't achieve the "point of decision" promised by the British Prime Minister, Mr Blair.
Both Mr Blair and the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, had to admit that they had not yet received a written statement from the IRA setting out its timetable for arms decommissioning nor a definition of the status of its army after its proposed cessation as a paramilitary force.
For all of that, it would appear that the soft landing following the first formal negotiations involving the now dominant parties in Northern Ireland, the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Féin, disguise the seismic advance which could be made. In what could be the understatement of the political process since the Belfast Agreement was signed and ratified by referendums, North and South, in 1998, the promise is held out that the IRA is prepared to decommission its arms and effectively stand down in a relatively short period of three to four months. For democratic parties on this island, the prospect is finally held out that our day has come.
It is a signal irony that, in their first formal negotiations, Sinn Féin and the IRA are prepared to offer more to Dr Ian Paisley's DUP than Mr David Trimble's pro-Belfast Agreement Ulster Unionist Party in a period of protracted negotiations over five years. But in the harsh world of politics that should not be too surprising. The Assembly elections last November produced a dominance of the two extremes and, as is often the case of Fianna Fáil historically in this part of the island, they can deliver. There will be no real political accommodation in the North unless it is done by Sinn Féin and the DUP.
The case for Sinn Féin and the IRA standing down its army is now overwhelming given the accepted judgment that republicans can achieve more by politics than by paramilitary activity. There is the strategic argument also that Sinn Féin can never be part of a government in the Republic unless the guns are gone. The Sinn Féin agenda, apparently, is to be in government by 2016, one hundred years after the Easter Rising of 1916.
The DUP's position, after the talks at Leeds Castle, is more difficult. There is an unarguable case for Dr Paisley's party to refuse to accept the interpretation of the two governments about the IRA's intentions. Both the president of Sinn Féin, Mr Gerry Adams, and the IRA, through "P O'Neill" follow-up statements, have always fallen short of what they indicated they would do previously. Mr Trimble was excoriated on this issue. It is wise for the DUP to demand that IRA words be seen before they are translated into actions.
The niggling question remains, however, whether Dr Paisley's DUP is seeking the end of the IRA as a paramilitary force as a precondition for devolved government or whether it wants to return to majority rule. This thesis must be tested.