The Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, has dismissed an attack on him by the Sinn Féin President, Gerry Adams, as 'the product of tiredness'.
Mr McDowell said he had no real reply to make to Mr Adams' comments.
Earlier Mr Adams launched a stinging attack on the Minister for Justice, in the continuing fall-out from the postponement of the Assembly elections.
Referring to Mr McDowell's description of the Irish Government as an 'honest broker' in the peace process, Mr Adams said on RTÉ Radio that if Mr McDowell saw himself as a broker between Sinn Féin and anybody else he could forget it.
He strongly criticised the Government, saying as a co-signatory of the Good Friday Agreement, it had an obligation to assert itself in achieving what people North and South had voted for.
He said some of Mr McDowell's comments in recent media interviews made the former Fine Gael leader, John Bruton, sound like Padraig Pearse.
The Sinn Féin leader said Republicans did not need the Minister to interpret his party's position to the Ulster Unionist leader, David Trimble, as they talked directly to him.
Mr Adams also called on people in the North to demonstrate for their right to vote on 29 May, the date on which the Assembly elections were due to have been held.
He said he did not understand the confusion which his statement on the IRA's position had aroused.
Earlier this morning Mr McDowell and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Brian Cowen, both said the Government would redouble its efforts to develop and strengthen the Good Friday Agreement.
Mr Cowen, said on RTÉ Radio that the two governments were determined to overcome the present obstacles.
Speaking in a BBC interview, the Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell also said the Government was committed to the success of the Good Friday Agreement.
The US envoy to the North also expressed disappointment with the postponement of the Assembly elections. However Richard Haass said the development was just a bump in the road and not a crisis.
Mr Haass said the Bush administration's view was that the statements from the IRA and Sinn Féin needed to go further and that holding elections now, would not move the peace process forward.
Mr Haass told RTÉ news that what was being asked of the Republican movement was 'quite small compared to what it has already agreed to'.
He added that this 'was not a time for vagueness but a moment for clarity and specificity'.
Despite yesterday's announcement that the election had been postponed until the autumn, DUP candidates handed in their nomination papers in several constituencies this morning.
The party's deputy leader and East Belfast MP, Peter Robinson, said that legally the election had not yet been cancelled. He also denied this was just a publicity stunt.
