Alliance party conference: The Alliance leader has warned that significant progress remains to be made before the current political crisis can be solved.
Referring to the 30 hours of talks at Hillsborough last week, hosted by the two governments, Mr David Ford told his party's annual conference at the weekend that the fundamental problem remained the lack of trust between the parties. "That cannot be cured with another quick fix," he said.
In a frank and thoughtful address to about 200 delegates and visitors, he criticised the US and Britain. "Deciding what is best for others smacks of an imperial era that should be over. Particularly when the two countries are failing to take any action to restore the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, a growing threat to regional stability."
Returning to local matters, Mr Ford commended the commitment to the Northern situation shown by the British Prime Minister and his "tireless partner", the Taoiseach.
Countering the positive and upbeat tone from both the British and Irish governments, Mr Ford said the result of the Hillsborough talks "fell a long way short of a deal, or even a 'shared understanding'.
"Indeed, in the absence of real sharing, partly - but only partly - as a result of a frenetic round of activity into Tuesday evening, there isn't even a shared text, still less an understanding."
Praising elements of the package discussed at Hillsborough, Mr Ford reserved judgment on plans to deal with "on-the-run" (OTR) paramilitary fugitives while lauding proposals to establish a monitoring commission to oversee implementation of the Belfast Agreement. He claimed this initiative was based on Alliance proposals and a development of the idea of a ceasefire monitor floated by the British government last year.
Mr Ford stressed that there should be no amnesty for OTRs, and that they should go through a judicial process. "We cannot deal with OTRs in isolation," he said.
"We also have to take account of those exiled by paramilitaries, forced to leave Northern Ireland by threats. We will continue to insist that before there is movement on OTRs, paramilitaries must remove the threats to exiles."
He confirmed that demands for sanctions against those held to be falling short of their obligations remained the "most significant issue". He said: "I am pleased that the two governments stuck to their position throughout two long days and insisted that there had to be a final sanction, whatever intermediate arrangements were proposed for negotiation or arbitration." Current sanctions clearly do not work, he claimed, and discussions of new arrangements and more commissions for oversight of the accord did not signal a maturing of political society.
Returning to a long-running complaint about the voting system in the Assembly , where members must align themselves with either unionist or nationalist blocs, Mr Ford said:
"There is something supremely bizarre that the government is not prepared to be a persuader for change to a voting system that both reinforces sectarian division and patently doesn't work."
He forecast that even if elections were held to a restored Assembly at the end of May, there could be another crisis in early June over the vote for new first and deputy first ministers.
He also criticised the religious identity question on the census .