Northern Ireland Assembly parties are to be asked by the British government at a series of meetings this week for their opinions on a review of the Belfast Agreement.
With the parties preparing for the review which is expected to get under way later this month, a Downing Street spokesman said Northern Secretary Mr Paul Murphy was arranging meetings with political leaders.
Last week, the Taoiseach appeared to confirm claims from sources in Belfast and Dublin that the review would begin on January 29th.
The Rev Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionists, Sinn Féin, the Ulster Unionist Party, the SDLP, the Alliance Party, the UK Unionist Party and the Progressive Unionist Party will be asked to suggest changes to the Agreement.
Alliance, which has six Assembly members, published its proposals last week. The party called for a change to the way devolved governments are established in Northern Ireland, with a voluntary coalition similar to the ones operating in Scotland and Wales accountable to the Assembly instead of the inclusive power-sharing executive involving unionist and nationalist parties.
Its document also called for the Northern Ireland Assembly to be reduced in size from 108 to around 80 MLAs, a review of the number of devolved government departments and their powers, and the scrapping of 50:50 police recruitment quotas for Catholics and Protestants.
It also called for an end to the requirement on all MLAs to designate themselves as "unionist", "nationalist" or "other" and for changes to the Assembly voting system.
This evening, Mr Trimble claimed there was "more than a hint of desperation" in the way the political process was being handled by the Northern Ireland Office. He said there was the suspicion the review had been ordered to fill a vacuum created not by the election result but the continued activity of paramilitaries.
"The 'problem' is not the DUP's election victory but the inability or unwillingness of paramilitary-related parties to commit themselves fully to the democratic process," he told the Annual General Meeting of the Foyle Ulster Unionist Association.
"The reason we do not have an Assembly is not because of some fatal flaw in the institutions — though they are, of course, capable of improvement and reform — but because we have not had acts of completion by the paramilitaries, most notably the IRA."