Getting Paisley to say yes

It was one of the flukes of the current political theatre that a meeting with Sinn Féin was the occasion for the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste's first public engagement after what was obviously a difficult tête-à-tête between the two earlier that morning.

That was Monday 9 October. We Shinners were on our best behaviour. And so were they. No one mentioned the war. I told them that many republicans and nationalists were concerned about the Irish government's handling of the peace process in recent times and that over the last few weeks a lot of people had voiced worries about how the altercations between the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste would affect the talks in Scotland.

It will probably have little negative effect. The Taoiseach may even find the challenge of the Scottish discussions a relief after his recent travails. In fact a man who I met on the fringe of a GAA social event over the weekend put it to me that these difficulties may be an incentive for the Taoiseach to be focused. I hope he's right.

In fairness, Bertie has made a very significant contribution to the peace process. In the midst of his own personal grief and at the time of his mother's death he returned to Castle Buildings at Stormont to conclude the Good Friday negotiations. That was eight years ago. Eight years is no time in the history of a process of transition like ours and it's only a blink in the history of a nation. But it's a very long time in politics. So as the peace process, despite difficulties, bedded down and the political process came more and more into the centre stage, so did the politics.

In my experience the British government always has a very clear focus on what they see as their national interest. That dictates everything. It is not the same on the Irish side. This process has seen a number of Irish political leaders representing the Irish government. But representing the Irish government, for some of them, is not the same as representing the national interest, unless you interpret that interest, as some of them do, as the interest of the southern state and its establishment.

However, apart from differences in how we define the geographical aspect of the word "national" it should be self-evident that a stable and peaceful society across the entire island of Ireland is in the interests of everyone who lives here, not least the citizens and government of the southern state, though in time that state may find itself subsumed into an agreed 32-county political realignment.

So, at different times this failure by the Irish government to think of the Irish national interest as described above has meant that they have been unable to match the British.

Aside from difficulties which have arisen over incidents, and alleged republican involvement in them, this matter has been a little fault line in the political chemistry of the process on the broadly nationalist side. It is not surprising that this would be so: 80 years of partition has had its effects.

It would be tremendous if the next short period saw the establishment of sustainable political institutions as contained in the Good Friday agreement. That's certainly Sinn Féin's aim. To get that far means the government keeping to its publicly stated positions and making sure that the British do likewise in relation to 24 November as the date for all political parties in the North to work together through the Assembly, the Executive and the other political institutions. And if that is not possible because the DUP won't come on board then the two governments have to ensure the process of change continues and is deliberate through advanced political arrangements between London and Dublin.

There is little hope of getting Ian Paisley to do the business unless this is the case. I say that not to pick on Paisley but to state the obvious. He is, and will be, challenged by his lifelong record of saying no. In my view it is possible to sort these matters out by 24 November but for all we know Paisley may never do the business even though it is obviously only a matter of time until the DUP come into the real world.

The responsibility of the rest of us is to encourage that to happen. I have already made it clear to republicans that we have a responsibility to do a deal with Paisley if he can be brought to that point. I have also made it clear that there are no deal-breakers for us or preconditions. Republicans have delivered big time. When Martin McGuinness, Mary Lou McDonald and I met Tony Blair last week I told Blair I considered that he was honour bound to deliver also. By the time you get to reading this column many of these issues will have become clearer. The week started with McDowell and Ahern meeting in Dublin on their issues. At the same time Ian Paisley was in Belfast meeting with representatives of the catholic hierarchy. So the week started well. Let's make it end well also.