The Ulster Unionist Party's blueprint for a political solution in Northern Ireland, published in London yesterday, has prompted a hostile nationalist reaction.
The SDLP described the document as "inadequate", while Sinn Fein said it was "unrealistic, unrealisable and unacceptable". The Alliance Party was also critical.
The SDLP deputy leader, Mr Seamus Mallon, again insisted there must be new North-South structures with executive powers. The paper, giving overriding responsibility for future North-South structures to a council of the isles, and according it only consultative status, was "not the text of a settlement", he added.
"The UUP knows full well that what they have issued is totally incapable of achieving the agreement of all the parties and it can only be seen as a tactical foray in the week before the talks move to Dublin," said Mr Mallon.
"The long-established SDLP position is that there must be new institutions in the North as well as a strong North-South body.
"These bodies must have executive powers. They cannot be mere talking shops," he said.
Mr Mallon said that given proper safeguards such institutions would pose no threat to either community. They would "initiate a new and more peaceful era for relationships between our hitherto divided people.
"This position has been supported by the two governments in the Framework Documents; it is also endorsed by the vast majority of people on this island.
"It is, therefore, clear that a settlement will have to provide much stronger and more meaningful arrangements than being proposed by the UUP," Mr Mallon added.
The Sinn Fein chairman, Mr Mitchel McLaughlin, said the UUP paper was "unrealistic, unrealisable and unacceptable to nationalists". He described the document as a "rehash of a political mind-set which is locked into the failures of the past".
"It is about maintaining the status quo and securing an internal arrangement. It is about putting in place a unionist-dominated assembly, and institutions and structures which will continue to deny nationalists living in the North our national and democratic rights," added Mr McLaughlin.
"If implemented, these proposals would sustain the nationalist nightmare which has endured since partition. These proposals are evidence of a lack of imagination by the unionist leadership and an unwillingness to accept the need for fundamental change," he said.
"They are not and will not be the basis for a democratic peace settlement," Mr McLaughlin insisted.
The Alliance chief whip, Mr Sean Neeson, said the UUP proposal for a new Northern assembly was "little more than a talking shop, a glorified version of the current forum". He accused the UUP of being determined to evade any real "responsibility for the government of Northern Ireland".
