Sinn Fein Assembly members are working to make Northern Ireland an economic success and appear to have given up on a united Ireland in eight years' time, a Democratic Unionist minister claimed today.
As his party prepared for its first electoral test against the breakaway Traditional Unionist Voice movement in a council by-election this week in Co Down, DUP Culture Minister Edwin Poots berated Jim Allister's party for offering no alternative strategy.
And he also claimed the Ulster Unionists had been punished at the polls for failing to provide proper leadership.
In an address to party colleagues in his Lagan Valley constituency, Mr Poots also urged unionists to guard against complacency because of had been achieved since the DUP became the largest unionist party in the 2003 Assembly Elections.
"As we look back over the Trimble and Empey years we can see that the Ulster Unionist Party capitulated to the [British] government and Sinn Fein every time a tough decision had to be made," he said.
"The UUP failed to set the agenda ... Through the DUP's strategy, republicans have abandoned long held beliefs of opposition to law and order in Northern Ireland. They now openly support the police and our justice system which they so often fought against.
"Even Sinn Fein representatives seem to have given up on the unpractical idea of a united Ireland by 2016."
Voters in Dromore will go to the polls on Wednesday to decide who will take the Ulster Unionist seat on Banbridge Council vacated by former Irish rugby international Tyrone Howe.
The Ulster Unionists are fielding Carol Black who works for Lagan Valley MLA Basil McCrea.
DUP hopes of capturing the seat are high with their candidate Paul Stewart. But they are facing their first ever electoral challenge from Traditional Unionist Voice - the movement formed by MEP Jim Allister who quit the DUP last March over its power sharing deal with Sinn Fein.
Traditional Unionist Voice are standing Keith Harbinson. The cross community Alliance Party's candidate is David Griffin, the Green Party has selected Helen Corry, Sinn Fein is running Paul Gribben and the SDLP have John Drake.