There is no great clamour from the population to restore devolution because they see it as an expensive indulgence for the political classes, the DUP's Sammy Wilson said yesterday.
Mr Wilson said that the public may not yet have woken up to the implications for their rates bills but that day will come.
He said: "With local taxes for some people doubling in just a few years, the cost of this form of devolution (the Good Friday Agreement) will hit them in the pocket."
He said that the DUP had set out proposals for making devolution less costly and these ideas should now be a key element of any renegotiation.
According to Mr Wilson the public's appetite for devolution has waned in the last five years.
"This is not because they no longer believe it is right that local people should be responsible and accountable for taking decisions, but because for the most part devolution has failed to deliver," Mr Wilson said."
"Why do we need 108 assembly members rather than a more defensible number like 72? Why do we need 11 departments when a handful of NIO ministers used to cope with six?"
Meanwhile, the SDLP's Joe Byrne has said that the British government needs to set a date for elections and bring all the pro-agreement parties forward to give people confidence in the process.
"The Good Friday Agreement remains the best and only way forward for all of us," he said.
Mr Byrne said: "The DUP and anti-agreement unionists need to look no further than at the work being carried out in policing to see that the agreement is far from dead."
