There is growing speculation at Westminster that members of the Northern Ireland Assembly could pay the financial price if the Easter week "deadline" for the creation of the executive is not met, and it becomes necessary to "park" the Belfast Agreement.
Mr David Trimble, Northern Ireland's First Minister, has previously spoken of "parking" the agreement as part of his "soft landing" scenario, given a failure to resolve the impasse over the decommissioning of paramilitary weapons.
But in a clear hint of early government thinking, a usually reliable source last night said: "Parking is never cost-free. You would eventually get to the point of asking: `What is the point of this body if the end result is not going to be achieved?' "
It is understood that the British government has no definitive plan at this stage, and the official line refuses to countenance the possibility of failure. And there would clearly be massive resistance to any proposal formally to suspend the assembly itself while hope remained that the institutional arrangements prescribed by the agreement could be brought into being.
However The Irish Times understands that senior members of at least two parties have privately urged the Secretary of State, Dr Mo Mowlam, to consider the suspension of Northern Ireland Assembly members' salaries in an attempt to "concentrate minds" should the latest deadline be broken.
Meanwhile the legislative process establishing the proposed new structures continued last night, as the British government tabled an Order in the House of Commons providing for the six cross-Border implementation bodies defined in the treaties signed yesterday in Dublin by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Andrews, and the Northern Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam.