Northern Secretary Peter Hain will call a meeting of the stalled Programme for Government Committee involving the leadership of the main parties, the SDLP forecast last night.
The committee, designed to draw up an agenda for an incoming powersharing Executive at Stormont, has been postponed since October 17th, just days after the St Andrews talks.
South Down Assembly member Margaret Ritchie said she believed Mr Hain would summon the committee to discuss the Gordon Brown peace dividend announced last night in Downing Street.
Mr Hain postponed the committee's inaugural meeting following an open rift between the DUP and Sinn Féin over the question of a ministerial pledge to support the PSNI.
No progress has been reported yet on the issue.
The DUP lost no time last night in criticising the Brown financial package. Deputy leader Peter Robinson said: "It's necessary to get this package to a stage where it is acceptable." The financial package was "a necessary precondition for any restoration of devolution".
"Unless the financial package is satisfactory, then there is little benefit in any return of devolution," he said.
His colleague, Ian Paisley jnr, said the offer was "billions short of what is needed" and he stressed that the issue was a deal-breaker for his party.
"There is a point in Irish history where British governments try to kill off problems with kindness," he said. "Usually we find it is too little, too late.
"What we have now is a situation where this is not enough and we are running out of time. We have got to make it enough and to make it on time."
He said the DUP "wouldn't sign the bottom line" if the investment package did not meet requirements.
Ulster Unionist leader Sir Reg Empey said he believed Mr Brown would not budge on the question of cutting corporation tax to levels in the Republic, although the chancellor had conceded he would "talk about it".
The UUP also wants the British Exchequer to cut fuel duties in Northern Ireland in an effort to halt cross-Border smuggling and fuel laundering, which is boosting organised crime in both parts of Ireland.
"He didn't knock fuel duties, he just said he would discuss it," Sir Reg said last night.
He said his party feared that examination of the Brown package details would reveal a disappointing level of extra investment.
"He thinks the total package will be attractive to inward investment - the tax credits for research and development and so on can be added up. We know that there has been very low take-up on this and there remains a lot of work to be done . . . This is an opening position [ by the chancellor]. We don't believe this opening gambit is his last word on it either."
Party sources on all sides confirmed last night they had adopted a common approach to the question of a peace dividend for Northern Ireland.
Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams said: "This is about getting the all-island institutions back in place and then having the capability to deal with the bread-and-butter issues."
For the SDLP, Ms Ritchie referred to the widespread disappointment at the British government's insistence on maintenance of corporation tax at one level throughout the United Kingdom.
"There is a need for some fiscal latitude," she told The Irish Times. "They are setting up a corporation tax office in Belfast to discuss with business issues of corporate tax in Northern Ireland. But we need more detail on that matter . . . This is only stage one in a very long process."