The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, has said he would welcome the establishment of a North/South consultative forum.
Addressing the annual meeting of Co-Operation Ireland yesterday, he said: "Without in any way seeking to anticipate what the [North/South Ministerial] Council might decide in this regard, my personal view is that the establishment of such a forum could represent a logical `people's dimension' to the North/South architecture established under the [Belfast] Agreement."
Mr Tony Kennedy, chief executive of Co-operation Ireland, welcomed Mr Cowen's remarks.
The Minister praised the "wonderful work" which Co-operation Ireland was doing. He said that the Government regretted that three of the 12 sectors of the North/South Ministerial Council had not been "operating to their full potential".
Mr Cowen continued: "The exclusion of particular ministers from the North/South Ministerial Council is not compatible with an agreement whose institutions were designed to be interlocking and interdependent and to operate on an inclusive basis."
He said that the Government expected intense negotiations after the elections in the North to resolve the outstanding issues of illegal arms, security normalisation and policing.
The Minister pointed out that, three years after the Belfast Agreement had been negotiated, "the actual operation of these new North/South structures has encouragingly given rise to far less fears and suspicions than might once have been anticipated".