The Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton, has said that any future cross-border bodies must have a practical use and the power to take decisions rather than being just of symbolic value.
Mr Bruton was speaking after separate meetings with the Northern Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam, and Sinn Fein at Stormont Castle in Belfast yesterday.
Meanwhile, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions has announced plans to stage a "Stop the Killings" rally in Belfast next week. Mr Bruton is to hold talks with the SDLP, the Ulster Unionists, Alliance and the UK Unionists over the next two days.
Speaking to reporters, Mr Bruton urged the UUP to talk directly to Sinn Fein. He said he understood republican reservations about the British-Irish document published last week and agreed that it used different language from the Framework Document.
He said, however, that it didn't matter whether any new North-South body was called an executive body or a ministerial council - "it's what it does that counts". The former Taoiseach stated that cross-border institutions had to be seen to deliver results and have the capacity to develop new functions, on the basis of agreement, over time.
The same logic applied to any new East-West bodies. If they were not relevant in a practical way to people's lives, and lacked the capacity to respond to developing situations, they would ultimately fail. Progress should be measured by how ordinary people, not constitutional lawyers, viewed the bodies, he added. Mr Bruton said many people were living in fear following recent sectarian killings but he thought the talks participants were succeeding in overcoming the latest crisis. "I am getting a message of positive progress in terms of negotiations. Despite the difficulties, there is a strong determination among the parties to give their all to this process."
Asked if he would have handled things differently if he were still Taoiseach, he would say only that perhaps it would have been possible to take a firmer hold on the process and ensure progress before Christmas.
Speaking after its meeting with the Mr Bruton, a Sinn Fein spokesman said it had repeated its objections to the two governments' blueprint. "We impressed upon Mr Bruton our belief that the status quo was not an option, that an internal arrangement was not a solution, and that the two governments need to move to rectify the situation," he said.
Meanwhile, Dr Mowlam yesterday said she was prepared to take radical action to tackle electoral fraud in the North. Speaking to the Northern Ireland affairs select committee, sitting at Stormont yesterday, she said a range of measures were under consideration, including introducing identity cards, a measure she supported despite opposition within the British Labour Party.
A new, computerised system of logging votes was also a possibility, she said. The committee also heard evidence from an SDLP councillor, Mr Alex Attwood, who said the main beneficiary of electoral abuse in multi-seat PR elections was Sinn Fein.
"At the moment in some parts of Northern Ireland there is a system of abuse of electoral procedures, conducted in a near-military fashion," he said. The abuse centred around impersonation, multiple registration and fraudulent postal votes, he added.