By Mark Devenport BBC Northern Ireland political editor

Anyone who has ever thrown a party could sympathise with Paul Murphy and Brian Cowen's plight.

You send out the invitations, you get in the refreshments and you wait for people to show.

The guests trickle in, but someone you had really hoped would turn up doesn't appear.

Then you open the front door and, horror of horrors, you are confronted, if not by a gatecrasher, then by that neighbour who you don't get on with but who you asked out of politeness.

For a second week running, David Trimble stayed away and his understudy Sir Reg Empey made no attempt to explain his leader's absence

No sooner are you handing out the canapes than your unexpected arrival is criticising you, your home decor and your choice of guests.

The British and Irish bash isn't so much a house warming party, more a keeping the house warm function, as the Northern Ireland secretary and the Irish foreign minister fervently hope they can return Parliament Buildings to its previous occupant, the assembly.

'Commitment'

The surprise appearance of anti-Agreement unionist Robert McCartney ensured that last Thursday's session was - in diplomatic language - "robust".

The others - for the most part - heard him out stoically hoping that his attendance would be a one-off.

But Mr McCartney used the BBC's Inside Politics programme to disabuse them of this notion, promising that he would be back at any subsequent round-table session to act as an anti-Agreement "fly on the wall".

The synopsis also includes items like the future stability of the Good Friday Agreement's institutions, policing and normalisation of security

For a second week running, David Trimble stayed away. His understudy Sir Reg Empey made no attempt to explain his leader's absence, raising a pointed question mark over the Ulster Unionists' commitment to the talks.

Without characterising the talks as a haggling process, Brian Cowen managed to convey the impression of a discussion covering both an end to paramilitary activity and the circumstances which would follow such a "quantum leap".

Sinn Fein clearly wants guarantees on those circumstances before it will consider 'using its influence' with the IRA. But do all the participants see it Brian Cowen's way?

The two governments produced a synopsis of the various parties' proposed agendas which has ending paramilitary activity and decommissioning right at the top.

However, while the unionists say this is the only item worthy of consideration, the synopsis also includes items like the future stability of the Good Friday Agreement's institutions, policing, normalisation of security, human rights and equality of opportunity.

'Certain circumstances'

The participants didn't agree all of this as a formal comprehensive agenda. But the synopsis shows the way the governments' thinking is going.

Something else which revealed a bit of the British Government's game plan was the two track approach to policing reform unveiled earlier in the week.

Paul Murphy: "Party invitations"

It is highly unusual for ministers to publish a draft bill and at the same time to dangle amendments which they might be prepared to write into the bill in certain circumstances.

That's precisely what Paul Murphy did in making the appointment of unelected former paramilitary prisoners as policing monitors conditional on - that new piece of peace process jargon - 'acts of completion' by republicans and loyalists.

On the one hand, Sinn Fein rubbished this as a concession which they had already taken for granted. On the other, Martin McGuinness appeared surprisingly upbeat about these 'acts of completion' indicating that dramatic moves were possible within the four month timescale which the government has to move amendments in parliament.

That four months takes us to March - the month of St Patrick's Day and the date when the assembly, if it had not been suspended, would have been due to wind itself up ready for May elections.

Sinn Fein has dismissed recent newspaper reports about the IRA making an historic move to wind down its activity, but if a deal is to be done it will require something fairly significant to restore trust.

Now he's started his career as a "fly on the wall", Bob McCartney should stick around at least until the spring. This British and Irish party might just be about to get interesting.