By Vicki Hawthorne, Ireland Correspondent
Intensive political negotiations are taking place between Northern Ireland's main political parties to try to find a way to deal with three issues which still cause division in society.
Flags, parades and dealing with the past in Northern Ireland are the main issues of focus of the talks.
US diplomat Richard Haass was asked in July by First Minister Peter Robinson and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness to chair discussions around the three contentious issues.
The talks were prompted by the widespread and sometimes violent street protests which took place across Northern Ireland at the start of the year.
Then, Belfast City Council voted to only fly the Union flag above City Hall on 17 designated days throughout the year.
Protests in Belfast in January Until last December, the flag had flown from the building every day of the year for over 100 years.
The move evoked intense anger among the loyalist / unionist community which wants to maintain the country's place within the United Kingdom.
Parades in Northern Ireland have also always been contentious, again sometimes descending into violence.
The third issue about how the country should deal with its past, is focused very much on families of people killed during the Troubles and the idea of a process to bring truth and perhaps justice for some relatives.
Mr Haass was given a deadline of the end of the year to report back to the First and Deputy First Ministers, but he made it clear last Friday that he was keen to bring the talks to a conclusion before Christmas.
It's understood that some progress has been made on the issues of dealing with the past and parades, but the flag issue may be "parked" because the parties cannot agree on a way forward.
The fact that no agreement can be reached on the flag issue, will be seen by some as a failure of the entire negotiations.
The political parties including the DUP, UUP, Sinn Fein, SDLP and the Alliance Party have been given three different drafts of the proposals to deal with the problems.
A round-table meeting involving all the parties was due to take place at a Belfast hotel this morning, but that has now been pushed back to allow more time for the negotiators to consider another draft of the document.
The DUP's Jeffrey Donaldson said: "We have made some progress, however with time rapidly moving on, I think realistically it is going to be a challenge to get agreement before close of play today."
Gerry Kelly from Sinn Fein said: "We still have work to do we have a short period to do it in, but let me put at the centre of that that people need to realise it is not just about Britishness, it is dealing with identities ... it is also Irishness."
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