Northern Ireland First Minister Peter Robinson has said the Stormont Executive is "no longer fit for purpose".
Writing to the Belfast Telegraph on Tuesday, the DUP leader said a failure to reach agreement on key issues such as welfare reform meant an election may have to be called.
Writing in the paper, Robinson said that a St Andrew's 2 round of talks was an option.
He told the paper: "It is transparently untenable for the Assembly and Executive to be sustainable while carrying the cost burden flowing from a failure to follow the national government's welfare reform changes.
"We have now come against an issue that doesn't allow us to hang on with the present process at Stormont. The present process cannot survive the welfare reform issue.
"We have to deal with this. It is not the case that we can scrub along for another period of time."
Deputy First Minister, Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness, said the challenges facing Stormont could be resolved.
"Megaphone or media-based negotiations are counter-productive," he said.
"We all have a responsibility to work together, but in the first place the first minister should talk to me and to his executive colleagues."