Something has come through loud and clear in recent days - that the Legacy Commission, as proposed in the Eames/Bradley report, is not going to work.

It is not going to work because it cannot guarantee the participation of some of the major players in the past.

Gerry Adams has made that clear. Several loyalists have made that clear.

There was another development when one of the authors of the report, Denis Bradley, suggested that, if a Conservative Government emerges from the next election, the document could be binned.

Adams' opposition is about the role the British Government has in shaping the commission. He sees the Britain not only as a player, but the major protagonist in the conflict.

Any commission that has their fingerprints on it would be doomed to failure - that is republican thinking. Adams said recently that he would not cooperate in those circumstances.

He set out an alternative: an Independent International Truth Commission shaped by the United Nations. There are those who are asking how likely that is.

But that is where republicans have set the bar and there is a view it has been set too high, with some arguing deliberately so.

What is clear is that, if Gerry Adams will not participate in the Eames/Bradley-recommended process, then neither will other republicans whose voices and presence would be needed. And without them it is a meaningless project.

That Legacy Commission proposed by the Consultative Group on the Past would have Investigation and Information Recovery Units. But the emerging loyalist argument is you cannot have both truth recovery and investigation/arrest processes. Their argument is the war is either over, or it is not.

A former Red Hand Commando prisoner, William 'Plum' Smith, who chaired the 1994 ceasefire news conference, warned recently against "Nuremberg-style trials". So we know what loyalists don't want - but what might they be prepared to do? That is the next question.

At her party's annual conference, Progressive Unionist Party leader Dawn Purvis tried to move the debate on - asking loyalists the question, 'How do you want to be remembered?'

"Our future is inextricably linked with our past," she said. "In order to build a peaceful and stable future we must now deal with the issue of our conflicted past and so loyalism must move to the next stage in the evolution of the peace process.

"Loyalism needs to engage on this issue and there is now an opportunity for them to get their story out there, to write the agenda, to listen to and answer those who ask questions in order to meet the needs of a society crying out to move on."

The Government is now considering responses to a consultation process on the Eames/Bradley document and will have heard the recent commentary coming out of the republican and loyalist communities.

But the process on the past is not just about republicans and loyalists - it is about what governments and security forces and many others are prepared, or not prepared, to put on the table.

Storytelling will be part of any process that emerges and recently Healing Through Remembering hosted Australian Paul Costello - an internationally recognised leader in the area of narrative practice.

"Stories should have the same warning on some of them that cigarette packets have - 'Dangerous'", he said.

He was not speaking against storytelling - but warning against "promising miracles".

"Some people who haven't had a voice need to be given the chance," he said. But - "there's got to be a strategy here. Why are we doing this? What is the outcome?"

After the consultation, we now wait for a strategy.

Recent comments have raised big questions: the biggest of them is, 'What will a process without the major players achieve?'