In the intense concentration on making progress within Northern Ireland - Strand 1 of the peace process - insufficient public attention has been paid to Strand 2 dealing with North-South relations and especially to Strand 3, which concerns relations between Ireland and Britain. This is unfortunate, because it has now become clear that the recent optimism that a settlement can be reached, is based on the possibility of some kind of trade-off between these two strands.
In particular, the positive outcome of the recent meeting between the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, and Mr Trimble in London, was substantially based on the Taoiseach's sympathetic response to Mr Trimble's suggestion that Scottish and Welsh representatives should be included in any future British-Irish council, in addition to their participation in a reconstituted parliamentary tier. Changing constitutional and political relations within Britain are therefore exerting an important influence on Anglo-Irish relations, as well as on the perceptions of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) as to where its best interests lie in a developing United Kingdom.
Mr Trimble devoted a significant part of his address at the recent UUP congress to the Labour government's plans for devolution in Scotland and Wales and their implications for Northern Ireland. He has done well not to be tempted down the road of the self-defeating sovereignty spree that is consuming the Conservative Party, but rather to explore what might be gained for his community by going along with Mr Blair's constitutional changes and turning them to advantage in Northern Ireland.
From the Dublin point of view, and presumably this applies more broadly to nationalist opinion in Northern Ireland, it is much easier to contemplate closer relations with a more decentralised Britain and a United Kingdom undergoing substantial constitutional change. Scottish and Welsh members of such representative institutions would be seen as more engaged with Ireland North and South, including attitudes to European integration, than has normally been the case when English MPs presumed to speak on behalf of Britain as a whole.
A changing Britain could, therefore, become simultaneously more attractive to Irish representatives, whatever their political allegiances. This opens up new political space within which a settlement can be sought. If constructive use is to be made of these changing parameters, much more public discussion will be required of options arising in Strands 2 and 3 by all the parties involved in the negotiations. Mr Ahern told the Dail on Wednesday that powers would be delegated from existing institutions to any agreed new North-South bodies.
If these are to be meaningful, their introduction could be painful for well-established organisations in both jurisdictions, whether in tourism, industrial promotion, European representation, agriculture or even cultural promotion. And if East-West bodies between Britain and Ireland are to be contemplated with genuine executive powers, perhaps on the model of the Nordic Council, similar difficult choices will confront decision-makers.