Published Monday, 01 March 2010
Policing and justice powers will be devolved on 12 April, if a resolution jointly tabled by the First and Deputy First Ministers gets cross-community support in an Assembly vote next week.
"There is a lot that has to happen before we go into this", UUP Strangford MLA David McNarry said.
"We have made our position very clear. The DUP did this deal at Hillsborough and came out and waved the white paper. It was a deal we weren't included in. It's a deal between them and Sinn Fein. They have enough votes to take it through the assembly. They don't need the other parties."
On Sunday, Mr McNarry said a poll should happen before or on the same date as Westminster elections.
"Personally I won't be touching it. It is time that we stopped all this pussy-footing about and decided that the assembly gets new mandates and that we go for an election before or on the same day as Westminster elections," he said.
The DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds said the devolution of policing and justice powers was unlikely to go ahead without the backing of the UUP.
On Monday, DUP leader Peter Robinson reiterated that the support of the Ulster Unionists was important.
"The manifesto commitment is that there has to be an expression of community confidence", he said.
"The easy and best way to do that is through the assembly members voting for it on 9 March. There are other mechanisms that we might put into place to give them an opportunity before that."
"I consider the support of the elected representatives in the assembly to be, and I quote as I said at Hillsborough, an essential component."
The UUP was the only party to boycott the unveiling of the Hillsborough Agreement last month.
The UUP leader Sir Reg Empey said he was "reserving judgement" on the deal brokered by the DUP and Sinn Fein after repeatedly complaining that he had been kept in the dark during the marathon talks.
Sir Reg later said his party would not sign up to the deal unless a "consensus" was found to solve the education debate.
He has also been highly critical of what he calls the "dysfunctional nature of the executive".
"As far as we are concerned we know what is needed to fix this," Mr McNarry told UTV.
"You cannot bring such a department as policing and justice into the realms of an Executive when that Executive is dysfunctional."
Last week, the UUP and the Conservatives decided on nine joint candidates to fight the forthcoming general election.
Conservative leader David Cameron has publicly welcomed the Hillsborough deal.
"We hope this leads to the completion of devolution and the re-establishment of political stability in Northern Ireland," Mr Cameron said last month.