ANTI-AGREEMENT REACTION: Anti-agreement unionists have said the failure of the British and Irish governments to publish their blueprint to restore the North's Executive and Assembly shows the entire peace process is dead.
The DUP deputy leader, Mr Peter Robinson, said it would be impossible to "put Humpty-Dumpty back together again". He accused the governments of continual dishonesty in their attempts to secure a deal to resurrect the Belfast Agreement.
Mr Robinson said the peace process no longer had any credibility and next month's Assembly elections should go ahead as planned.
He said Mr Blair and the Taoiseach had been dishonest when they came to Hillsborough Castle last month. "They said there was a shared understanding between the pro-agreement parties - there clearly wasn't.
"They said their blueprint would be published as a take-it-or-leave-it package - it hasn't been. We were told there would be no further negotiations and yet Sinn Féin/IRA has said negotiations continued up until this very morning. I'm sure there will be further discussions with the IRA, which is determined to squeeze every bit of juice out of this process."
Mr Robinson said he believed Sinn Féin and the Provisional IRA were not keen to sign up to any deal which would mean "having to explain things to the troops" at coming Easter commemorations. Similarly, the Ulster Unionist leader, Mr David Trimble, did not want to agree to a package which could divide his party, Mr Robinson said.
The UK Unionist leader, Mr Bob McCartney, said yesterday's "fiasco" was predictable. "It shows the peace process is a sham because it is steeped in ambiguous language. Nationalists are told one thing and unionists another.
"Any time there is an attempt to put the agreement into practical effect, the chickens come home to roost," he added.
"A crisis ensues because all the fraudulence is revealed. We never had any genuine attempt to find a political settlement here. Rather, we had a device to bring about conflict resolution between the British state and violent republicanism."
The DUP leader, the Rev Ian Paisley, described Mr Blair as "a giant against terrorism outside the UK but a tiny dwarf when it comes to terrorism within the UK".
He condemned the British government for its willingness to engage in further negotiations with Sinn Féin. "The Prime Minister has signalled his willingness to bow the knee to IRA/Sinn Féin and to continue with more negotiations."
The anti-agreement Ulster Unionist MP, Mr David Burnside, said the two governments should expel Sinn Féin from the political process because of the Provisional IRA's refusal to abandon all military activity. "The IRA has again not delivered even though they were offered many concessions," he said.