DUP has begun to pull the curtain back on a more moderate position

IN the last few weeks Ian Paisley has spent a lot of time in the company of people he usually prefers to avoid.

He is usually boorish and impatient when RTÉ asks him a question at a press conference or sticks a microphone in front of him during a walkabout. On Tuesday night, however, he gave RTÉ's Prime Time his first major Irish television interview for many years.

It had been almost a decade since Paisley or his party engaged in any meaningful way with the Dublin Government. However, the week before last the big man of Ulster politics led a Democratic Unionist party (DUP) delegation to the Irish embassy in London for talks with Bertie Ahern and a team of ministers.

For two days last week, for two days this week and for two days every week between now and Easter, Paisley and a DUP delegation will sit one empty chair down from Sinn Féin at round-table all-party talks in Stormont. The two party delegations will probably never address each other directly, but at least they are sitting around the same table, within earshot of each other.

None of these events are remarkable on their own but taken together they illustrate how the Democratic Unionist party has been taking small steps towards genuine intercourse with its political bêtes noires.

Many bemoaned the results of last November's assembly election as representing a stalemate. However, in the 12 weeks since, there has been real movement and there is hope of further shifts.

The most significant event of all since the election was the launch last week of the DUP's pre-talks position paper, Devolution Now.

There may still be no cause for euphoria but the content, tenure and presentation of that position paper was interesting. The proposals set out by the party present a challenge to the other Northern parties and also to many here in the Republic whose minds may be closed to seeing positive developments within unionist politics.

Devolution Now is a glossy 24-page document which has clearly been put through the hands of copywriters and designers.

It was published at a carefully choreographed, no questions, press launch last Friday in which the party's deputy leader, Peter Robinson, rather than Ian Paisley, was given the leading roll. It is aimed as much at mass readership as the media.

The document outlines three scenarios for devolution in Northern Ireland. The first of these they call "mandatory coalition". This, in all but name, would be the same as the all-party executive of ministers that operated for periods during the life of the last assembly. The DUP say they will only participate in such a coalition with Sinn Féin if the IRA is fully decommissioned and disbanded.

The second scenario is for a "voluntary coalition". This would require the SDLP to abandon the Good Friday Agreement model and go into government with the DUP and others, but without Sinn Féin.

If the IRA doesn't decommission and disband and the SDLP is not prepared to go into a voluntary coalition, then the third scenario offered by the DUP is for power to be devolved to the assembly itself.

The assembly would then operate like a grand county council, with no cabinet of ministers, but instead exercising executive power either as a full chamber or though committees.

Commentators, North and South, have had to access a new lexicon of adjectives to describe the proposals in Devolution Now "moderate ... flexible ... strategic .. imaginative". This is the kind of language that many here in the Republic find hard to associate with a party led by Ian Paisley. Even the largely Catholic-read Irish News in its editorial described the proposals as representing "an unmistakable change of approach on the part of what has become the main force within unionism".

In advance of last November's assembly elections, the DUP sloganised a lot. There were occasional rants and outbursts especially when Paisley himself got at a microphone. However, the party, in the main, stuck to a tight campaign script. It was strong on renegotiation of the Good Friday Agreement and loud on denouncing Trimble's sell-out but stayed vague on what should replace the agreement.

At the same time, persons in or near the top echelons of Democratic Unionism whispered to the media that if it came to it then, even though led by Paisley, the DUP would prove more creative and moderate than the campaign rhetoric implied.

THE Democratic Unionist party's core support enjoyed the simultaneous attack on Adams and Trimble and were mobilised to vote. However, some more moderate unionist voters were also attracted to the DUP's subtler message.

Once it became clear that November's election would be to negotiations rather than to a working assembly, some switched to the DUP judging that the hard line of Sinn Féin should be met, at least initially, with the hard line of Democratic Unionism. Some unionist voters were also more confident that Peter Robison, Nigel Dodds, et al, would prove more competent and disciplined than the Trimble-led Ulster Unionist Party.

As they now sit down each week to talks in Stormont, some on the Irish Government side are actually grateful that the election result has moved the process on from the trenches of the "save Dave" rollercoaster.

For the previous three years, guessing what Trimble could sell to a majority of his party became almost an obsession. Now many feel that the time has come to go for the bigger prize getting the Democratic Unionists and Sinn Féin into government together.

It will be more difficult and will take longer. The key difference, however, is that once they have signed up for a deal, Peter Robinson and Nigel Dodds provided they can bring Paisley along with them won't be outflanked on their unionist credentials. Deals done between hardliners are always more likely to hold.

In victory comes confidence. The Democratic Unionists are now the largest party. They have every reason to feel secure, so they have begun to pull the curtain back on a more moderate position. What was implicit before the election is now explicit it's still somewhat schizophrenic but at least it's out in the open.

There has also been a view among some on the Irish side that even if Sinn Féin could have delivered full IRA decommissioning and disbandment before the election, they held off. Why concede their last, and most significant, bargaining chip to Trimble better to hold something in reserve to clinch a government deal with the DUP.

While the Democratic Unionist party insists that it wants to negotiate an entirely new settlement, much of what is proposed in Devolution Now could be achieved within the framework of the Good Friday Agreement.

The history of the DUP has been one of saying no no to Sunningdale, no to the Anglo-Irish Agreement and no to the Good Friday Agreement.

However, a generation of new leaders is showing signs that they want to be players rather than wreckers.