The resignations of unionist ministers from the Executive do not spell the end of the North's power-sharing institutions, the security minister, Ms Jane Kennedy, has told Alliance Party delegates.
Addressing the party's annual conference, Ms Kennedy said she believed the two governments would be able to restore the Executive and implement all aspects of the Belfast Agreement.
There was "a very long life in the Belfast Agreement yet", she added. "Of course the resignation of the unionist ministers from the Executive was a setback. But it is just that - a setback, not a crisis, not a breakdown. And certainly not the end of the road." Fears on both sides of the community needed to be addressed without delay, Ms Kennedy insisted, if there was not to develop a "dangerous vacuum" that might be filled with violence and sectarian hatred.
Delegates passed an emergency motion calling on paramilitary groups on all sides to disarm immediately. The Alliance deputy leader, Ms Eileen Bell, accused both paramilitaries and political parties of having put their own interests above those of a peaceful society. Neither "informally imposed deadlines" nor "feet-dragging on decommissioning" were acceptable if progress was to be made, she added.
Other motions condemned segregated housing and schooling. Schoolchildren had been used as pawns in political disputes as a result of segregated education, the party's education spokeswoman, Ms Naomi Long, said.
Referring to the Holy Cross school dispute, she added: "If anyone doubts that segregated schooling is part and parcel of the segregation of wider society one need only look across this city to north Belfast to see that schools and their pupils are increasingly being identified by sections of the public not just with a particular religious belief but with a perceived political agenda."
On housing, the Alliance chief whip, Mr Kieran McCarthy, expressed alarm that housing in the North was now more segregated than at any time in the past 30 years and called for the removal of paramilitary emblems and graffiti as a way of remedying the problem.
Delegates also backed a motion calling for the setting-up of exit programmes for prostitutes as well as for an urgent reform of prostitution-related legislation dating back to 1845. Another motion condemned unionist and nationalist parties for using the policing issue as a "political football" to secure concessions.