Alliance Party leader David Ford indicated that if further assurances were forthcoming, he would be in a position to recommend to colleagues - at a special party executive meeting - that one of their members should apply.

"If the progress that has been made in the last 48 hours continues it looks like we could have something positive and constructive to move on," he said.

The Alliance Party has so far declined to apply for the ministry, insisting that the ruling Democratic Unionist/Sinn Fein administration had not set out a comprehensive policy programme for the new department or done enough to tackle divisions in wider society.

With the region's two largest parties having agreed not to nominate from within their own ranks, Mr Ford is considered to be their preferred incumbent.

But only days after the landmark Hillsborough agreement on law and order devolution he threw a spanner in the works when he did not lodge an application at a meeting of all the main party leaders to consider who would be Northern Ireland's first justice minister in 38 years.

As well as having concerns about policy issues within the new department, Mr Ford and his party are also unhappy that DUP First Minister Peter Robinson and Sinn Fein Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness have still not published a long delayed strategy to promote integration in the region.

After holding further talks with the leaders, Mr Ford struck a more positive note.

"There has been a fairly reasonable indication of progress on the shared future agenda and some of the policy matters facing the new justice department," he said.

"The trend is in the right direction but we are not there yet. There has been positive and constructive engagement and some signs of movement."