Northern Ireland's political parties are set the challenging task over the next seven months of agreeing to restore the power-sharing Executive, following publication yesterday of the International Monitoring Commission's positive report on paramilitary violence.
Its key finding is that the leadership of the Provisional IRA "has committed itself to following a peaceful path". While the report does not cover the recent murder of Denis Donaldson in Donegal, it finds no evidence of IRA training, engineering, targeting or recruitment activity.
This is good news, which must now set the scene for serious political bargaining. Tony Blair told RTÉ yesterday that between now and November there is ample time to determine whether a real will to make political progress exists or whether things will slip back because it is not there. The November 24th deadline is pitched on that fundamental political evaluation. The Government supports this analysis and believes the time has come to reach a deal.
It is a sensible approach, as Mr Blair and Mr Ahern will by then have exhausted their remarkable joint search for a settlement. On the evidence presented yesterday the Provisional movement has made a fundamental political commitment to abandon violence, even if serious issues about illegal assets, localised criminality and thuggery remain. The IMC has done a fine job of scrupulous reporting in its 10 reports so far.
The alternative to an agreement has also been spelled out bluntly. Northern Secretary Peter Hain warns the 108 Assembly members there will be no redundancy package if agreement fails. There is the danger that the North's political class and culture will be lost for a prolonged period, amid definite indications of a public indifference bred by endless prevarication and bickering. Interest groups and civil society in the North need to take the likely democratic and economic costs of failure seriously in coming months and exert pressure for a settlement. Whatever the weaknesses of the Belfast Agreement it is surely better than a relapse into prolonged direct rule.
The two major parties in the North face particular challenges between now and November. The DUP must decide whether it is willing in principle to share power with Sinn Féin, assuming the IMC's assessment of its peaceful intent is borne out. Dr Ian Paisley's hint yesterday that he would demand further conditions about IRA disarmament indicates he still wants to delay making this decision, while Peter Robinson's wing of the party is more clearly ready for serious bargaining.
The IMC report deals explicitly with policing, the central question facing Sinn Féin as it prepares for these negotiations. The report believes the Sinn Féin leadership is willing to engage in policing if it is devolved but says the issue is unresolved within its membership. Normal politics should be able to deliver a bargain in which power-sharing and policing are exchanged. It is a challenge to which both of these abnormal parties should now respond with vigour and determination.