Tony Blair will get a ringside seat at today’s historic formation of a power-sharing Northern Ireland government, putting the seal on his decade-long commitment to the peace process just two days before he announces his departure as Labour leader.

Mr Blair will be joined by Bertie Ahern, his Irish counterpart, at the swearing-in of a government which would have been inconceivable ten years ago.

The Rev Ian Paisley, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, will swear an oath of office before the Northern Ireland Assembly’s 108 members to become First Minister, closely followed by Martin McGuinness, a former chief-of-staff of the Provisional IRA, as Deputy First Minister.

While Mr Paisley in recent days has insisted that his role is superior to that of Mr McGuinness, the two posts are in fact equivalent. The sight of these two formerly implacable enemies sharing office will burnish Mr Blair’s image as a peacemaker and the Prime Minister who finally solved the Irish Question.

There will be pomp to the occasion, but little warmth: Mr Blair will be deprived the famous photo-opportunity that President Clinton achieved of embracing Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat during the optimum moment of hope in the Middle East peace process.

But given the bitter twists in Israeli-Palestinian relations, Mr Blair will perhaps prefer the formal vista of Sinn Fein, the Provisional IRA’s political wing, and the DUP committing themselves to governing Northern Ireland from the Palladian splendour of the Stormont Parliament building in east Belfast.

The Assembly will also nominate ten ministers to head government departments and two junior ministers. The ministers will be drawn from the DUP, Sinn Fein, the Ulster Unionists and the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party. An Assembly Speaker and three deputy Speakers will also be elected.

Yesterday Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland Secretary, signed the order restoring devolved government which should guarantee him ending the line of direct rule ministers since 1972, when the Stormont government was abolished in the face of an onslaught of Provisional IRA violence.

“This is a huge moment . . . devolved government is here to stay,” Mr Hain said.

However, in a sign of last-minute brinkmanship Mr Paisley gave warning that the Government should not take for granted today’s “little pantomime” unless Gordon Brown improved his financial peace package for the province.

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