Six years ago few people had heard the word decommission and fewer still understood its meaning. Now it invades every political comment and dominates the political agenda.
The irony is that decommissioning, which was not an issue while war raged around us, has come to dog a process with the potential to resolve decades of conflict. It threatens to undermine entirely the Good Friday agreement which, uniquely, has the support of both unionism and nationalism, an agreement which was endorsed by the vast majority of the Irish people.
It is important therefore to recall the origins of the decommissioning issue with which there is such an apparent political obsession. Before the first IRA cessation in 1994, we were repeatedly told that if the IRA would only end its campaign, everything was then possible - repression would end, emergency legislation would be repealed, injustice and inequality would be tackled.
The immediate consequence, the British government told us privately and publicly, directly and indirectly, would be political negotiations to deal with the issues which had historically led to conflict. This assurance was important to Sinn Fein's attempts, with others in nationalist Ireland and the US, to construct a viable conflict resolution process.
When we eventually brought about the political conditions in which the IRA called its first cessation, the unionist response was negative and begrudging. However, it was the British government's response which proved more damaging. For ideological reasons and because of its dependence on UUP and Tory right-wing votes at Westminster, the then Tory government under John Major was unwilling to begin the political negotiations which should have followed the IRA cessation.
Instead, he put up a series of new conditions which would have to be met before Sinn Fein could be involved in political negotiations. The most damaging was the demand for IRA decommissioning, the so-called Washington 3 test.
This was articulated by Patrick Mayhew during a visit to Washington, but had been drafted in Downing Street by senior advisers. Washington 3 was deliberately designed to keep Sinn Fein out of negotiations and was developed and presented in such a way that Sinn Fein could not meet the demands made of it. It was a test designed to be failed.
There we have the origins of the present difficulties.
The manner in which the issue of arms has been addressed throughout the development of the peace process has been moulded by the Major government's approach. This tactical and consequently counterproductive approach has been enthusiastically adopted by the UUP in its attempts to minimise the changes which the Good Friday agreement promised.
One of the objectives of such an approach is the attempt to ensure the matter is not resolved. If we genuinely want to address the issue, we need to develop a viable and acceptable way of doing so. Using the issue as a tactical device actually makes it less likely to be resolved, as recent events have graphically demonstrated. The logic of this is that we need to find a new, imaginative and, most importantly, effective approach to dealing with the issue of arms and the other consequences of decades of conflict. In this context, it is important that we set out with clarity the present position:
Decommissioning was no part of the cessations;
none of the armed groups is committed to decommissioning;
decommissioning is not a pre, or post, condition in the Good Friday agreement;
no political party is responsible for decommissioning and therefore no political party can be in default if it does not happen;
the weapons of the armed groups are silent;
silenced weapons are not a threat;
decommissioning, according to the British state forces, is not a security issue;
decommissioning will only take place on a voluntary basis - it cannot be imposed;
there will obviously be no progress in dealing with the arms issue in the absence of political progress;
May 22nd is a date that the pro-agreement parties agreed to work to;
May 22nd is not a deadline;
May 22nd is not binding on any of the armed groups, as they did not sign up to it;
there is now little possibility of decommissioning by any armed group by May 22nd and in all probability no possibility.
Given these realities and the failure to implement the Good Friday agreement across a whole range of issues, it is obvious there will be no resolution by the target date set in the agreement, nor will it be achieved in a way prescribed by either the British government or the UUP.
Indeed the UUP has used any influence it has to prevent it. progress. It is also unlikely to be achieved through Gen John de Chastelain's mechanism, given the British government's rejection of the judgment of the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning on the issue. It is clear that the arms issue will only be dealt with in the context of the full implementation of the Good Friday agreement and, critically, the institutions, which are its cornerstone. In other words, guns, armies and all that goes with them are the consequences of conflict.
The Good Friday agreement presents a template for politics to work, a defined and detailed framework to address both the causes and the consequences of the conflict. It hasn't yet become a reality but, by making politics work, we can begin to deal effectively with the arms issue. By removing the causes of conflict, we can finally resolve the arms issue.
We can take all of the guns out of Irish politics - but only if this is dealt with as an objective, and as the collective responsibility, of all the parties (including the two governments) involved in the process of conflict resolution.
Gerry Kelly is a member for Sinn Fein of the suspended Northern Ireland assembly