After many reprieves, the British Irish Interparliamentary Body meeting in York on Tuesday and Wednesday will, at last and inevitably, discuss its own possible demise. The backbenchers from Leinster House and Westminster have met twice a year, once in each jurisdiction, since 1990, to increase contact between the two parliaments and to discuss matters of mutual interest. The Belfast Agreement and all that stems from it means the body now has to address its future. New parliaments, new institutions and new administrations are all coming on stream and the body will either have to expand or be subsumed into a new grouping.
Significant decisions have to be taken at a time when new bodies, including the North South Ministerial Council and the British Irish Council or Council of the Isles, let alone the Edinburgh and Cardiff parliaments, have yet to be formed. A debate on the "Future of the Body" is scheduled for Wednesday morning and a paper on where it can go now has been prepared. It could negotiate to remain in existence by admitting members from Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, the Channel Isles and the Isle of Man.
Will the 50-member body become the parliamentary dimension of the East-West strand, as the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern expects, or will a new institution such as a British-Irish parliamentary assembly take its place?
One big bonus for any new arrangement is that the unionists, who always ignored the body, should now come on board.
There's a lot on the agenda next week, including debates on the need for improved cross-Border road and rail links and economic aid - but it is not all work. On Tuesday there's dinner at nearby Castle Howard. Known to millions as Brideshead, it was the setting for the TV dramatisation of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited. The host at the castle will be the Hon Simon Howard, descendant of the earls of Carlisle who built the immense pile 300 years ago.