The North's Assembly will reconvene on September 10th despite the current political stalemate. The Assembly is currently in summer recess, and many members are on holiday. Committee meetings will begin on September 2nd, but there will not be a plenary session until the following week.
The Northern Secretary, Dr John Reid, suspended the Assembly for 24 hours from midnight on Friday. Its restoration has given the pro-agreement parties and the two governments another six weeks to agree a deal on decommissioning, policing and other matters.
In the meantime, the Executive continues to function despite Mr David Trimble's resignation as First Minister on July 1st. The Enterprise Minister, Sir Reg Empey, has been nominated by Mr Trimble to carry out some of the functions of the First Minister's office. This enables the Executive to continue to operate normally, but Sir Reg cannot be referred to as First Minister.
The First and Deputy First Ministers are elected together and are intricately linked in legislation, so Mr Trimble's resignation meant that Mr Seamus Mallon simultaneously ceased to hold office. But Mr Mallon can continue to exercise all the functions of his office although he cannot use his title.
Executive meetings can still be held, although only one has taken place since the resignation of Mr Trimble. Similarly, no North-South Ministerial Council meetings have been held during the summer.
Apart from the Deputy First Minister and First Minister, the other 10 Ministers in the Executive have retained their posts in full.
Intensive negotiations to end the political stalemate are expected to begin early next month. If there is no agreement by September 23rd, Dr Reid will then have the same choice he faced last week: to suspend the Assembly or to dissolve it and call fresh elections.
If a deal is reached, Mr Trimble and Mr Mallon will still have to face re-election in the Assembly. They need the support of both a majority of nationalists and a majority of unionist members.
Their re-election is not guaranteed because unionist ranks are so evenly split. The 21 DUP Assembly members, and seven other members belonging to the smaller unionist parties, combine to make a 28-strong anti-agreement bloc.