The SDLP's Mr Seamus Mallon has suggested that a Sinn Féin decision to join the Policing Board might be a necessary "act of completion" before fresh Assembly elections take place.
In doing so the former Deputy First Minister has raised a significant challenge to the British and Irish governments - and to the Ulster Unionist leader, Mr David Trimble - as they await the detail of any proposed move by the IRA toward its cessation as an active paramilitary organisation.
During the recent Hillsborough negotiations on the British-Irish "shared understanding" of the steps necessary to complete the implementation of the Belfast Agreement, Whitehall sources suggested Sinn Féin and the Ulster Unionists might have a mutual interest in leaving the policing issue unresolved until after the election now scheduled for May 29th.
However, during yesterday's debate on the Report Stage of the Police (Northern Ireland) Bill, Mr Mallon raised the bar for both parties and for both governments.
Mr Mallon stopped short of saying elections should be postponed in the event of Sinn Féin's continuing failure to resolve its attitude to the Police Service of Northern Ireland and to take its places on the board. But in saying this was a decision which "surely must precede" the restoration of devolution and any election, Mr Mallon added to the pressure on both governments amid further signs that the projected timetable for agreement on all the acts of completion necessary to enable both has slipped.
The British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, and the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, had been expected back in Belfast next week. However, following Sinn Féin and British government hints of likely delay earlier in the week, hardline unionists yesterday told The Irish Times they expected Mr Trimble to try to "bounce" the UUP with an agreement and a meeting of the party's ruling Ulster Unionist Council around April 26th "in the teeth of an election".
Usually reliable sources said they expected MPs Mr David Burnside and Mr Jeffrey Donaldson to oppose Mr Trimble at the UUC, and, if they lost that vote, to refuse to endorse any party manifesto promising a return to power-sharing with Sinn Féin following the election.
In the Commons yesterday Mr Trimble supported Mr Mallon's contention to the Northern Ireland Secretary, Mr Paul Murphy, that it would be appropriate to incorporate the "act of completion" requiring Sinn Féin's commitment to join the Policing Board in the Bill.
The issue arose as Mr Murphy faced DUP-led unionist protests over his decision to introduce new clauses to the Bill to incorporate the previously published Draft Text for Consideration paving the way for former paramilitary prisoners to serve as independent members of District Policing Partnership Boards. Mr Murphy repeated that this would only be effected by a further Order, to be approved by the Commons and the House of Lords, in the context of a final agreement on overall "acts of completion".
DUP deputy leader Mr Peter Robinson complained that the government had said during the Committee Stage of the Bill it would only be necessary to consider the new clauses in circumstances which permitted restoration of the Stormont Assembly.
Mr Murphy insisted that a timing problem had arisen because of the progress made in the recent Hillsborough negotiations, the product of which the two governments would publish in the next few weeks, and because of his desire to avoid having to produce a third Policing Bill.
In answer to Liberal Democrat MP Mr Lembit Opik, Mr Murphy said it would not be possible to incorporate the Government's definition of all necessary "acts of completion" on the face of the Bill.
Mr Mallon asked Mr Murphy if he could "conceive of a situation" where an election was held without an act of completion (by Sinn Féin) in relation to the Policing Board. Mr Murphy said he was "by no means unsympathetic" to Mr Mallon's point but he would have to wait and see.