Decommissioning, the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, told the Dail this week, must be a voluntary act and cannot be imposed. He was talking about lethal arms illegally held by a still-proscribed terrorist organisation operating in his own jurisdiction as well as in Northern Ireland.
Presumably the Garda, as they prod the hedges and ditches of north Co Dublin, are under instructions either not to find arms illegally held by the Provisional IRA, or if they do, to ask politely if the terrorists holding them would mind getting rid of them, just as they might suggest to a delinquent cyclist that he ought to get himself a tail-light.
Why must decommissioning be voluntary? Is compliance with the law of the land obligatory for all of us except members of the republican movement in good standing with Messrs Adams and McGuinness? It has to be voluntary, it would seem, because the IRA has never surrendered its weapons, and never will. In short, it has to be voluntary to accommodate republican intransigence, to appease the terrorists.
This is the ethos of the deal which David Trimble has to try to sell to the Ulster Unionist Council in Belfast's Waterfront Hall tomorrow. It includes not just voluntary decommissioning but the placing in government of the representatives of the perpetrators of Enniskillen, the Shankill bomb, Bloody Friday and, just three years ago, the destruction of Manchester. All without the surrendering of one weapon, and with no admission that the murderous work of the IRA was anything other than justified.
It is not Mr Trimble's deal. It has been forced upon him by his own government, acting in tandem with the government in Dublin, under the firm guidance of that great defender of democracy, the USA. All its billing as a triumph for peace and a great step of faith cannot obscure the fact that it is a shoddy, tawdry arrangement, chiefly fashioned by the inability of democratic governments to deal with small terrorist groups.
Is it necessary? David Trimble, probably the most able, intelligent and courageous leader unionism has had, thinks it is. He became a leading player only after the two governments had progressed far down the road of appeasement, at a time when unionism had few friends and when its considerable arguments were discounted. Starting from where he was, and not from where he might have liked to have been, he has made unionism more flexible and has radically improved its image.
In doing this he has had to play the "next step" game - where the next step is judged not on fundamental principle or long-term significance, but on whether it represents an advance so significant from the previous one that it cannot be taken.
The process of appeasement is made up of next steps. For some in unionism, the step of sitting down to negotiate with the representatives of terrorism was too much, for others the Belfast Agreement was a step too far.
For many who supported the agreement, the logical stopping point, the step they could not take, was the seating of Sinn Fein in government while the IRA remained armed and in business.
They believed, and were encouraged by Downing Street to believe, that the agreement effectively excluded Sinn Fein from the executive until the IRA had disarmed. Mr Blair reneged on his promises, and, some would argue, on the agreement itself.
NOW Mr Trimble has been persuaded to advocate just one last step. The UUC will be told tomorrow that if the executive is set up the IRA will immediately begin the decommissioning process by naming an interlocutor. They will hear that inventories of arms held will be produced and a decommissioning timetable established, and that all arms should be out of commission by next June. And that Mr Trimble will blow the whistle if the first guns have not been decommissioned by the end of January, thus exposing the true nature of republicanism, and the futility of further appeasement.
But this last step would involve a concession of principle of such magnitude that the UUC may not accept it - the seating in government of the representatives of still armed and active terrorism.
Mr Trimble can argue that the principle was first devalued when the governments did what they said they would never do - negotiate with terrorists - and that it was further damaged when inclusion of Sinn Fein was accepted as an essential element in a settlement.
He can argue that his objective is still to decommission the IRA, and that if he can achieve that, beginning in January, then allowing Sinn Fein into government in December is no great sacrifice, given that principles have already been eroded.
Will it work? At the end of the Civil War in 1923, when Sinn Fein/IRA ordered a ceasefire, the Free State government made the surrender of arms an absolute prior condition for entering into talks. The proof was not forthcoming, and the talks were never held.
This time around, no such proof is asked. Republicans are to enter government - never mind talks - with no prior movement on arms. Even then, decommissioning is to be voluntary. Voluntary decommissioning means no admission that the possession of weapons is illegal, which in turn means that the holding of them, and the use of them, was arguably justified and legitimate.
The IRA has said it will never decommission; leading Sinn Fein members have expressed doubts about decommissioning. Commentators tell unionists to forget about it. Will the two governments call a halt at the end of January if no guns have been delivered? Or will just one more step be required? Will Sinn Fein's "total and absolute commitment to exclusively peaceful means" survive a unionist walkout in February if decommissioning has not started? Will the IRA, or anyone else claiming the republican mantle, decide that, in the absence of "freedom and justice", some more violence is in order?
The UUC faces an appalling decision tomorrow, one which it should never have been asked to take. Perhaps it should decline to take it, seeking clarification and further negotiation. After all, politely-phrased intransigence has paid off handsomely for others.
Dennis Kennedy is a member of the Cadogan Group