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Whatever extra powers Stormont gets, the government at Westminster will continue to keep a watchful eye on Northern Ireland, anxious that the carefully negotiated settlement remains in place. Over the last 12 years Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have been available to adjudicate in rows between the Northern Ireland parties, untrammeled by any special link with one or the other. However if David Cameron is the next occupant of Downing Street that relationship could change. His Conservatives recently renewed their bond with Northern Ireland's third biggest party, the Ulster Unionists. The two parties will be fielding joint candidates at next year's Westminster election and last year David Cameron appeared as a VIP guest at the Ulster Unionists' annual conference.

Clip Cameron "I want to use all the talents of people across the UK..."

The Ulster Unionists have made no secret about their dissatisfaction with how the power sharing coalition is operating. So if David Cameron becomes Prime Minister will they press him to rewrite the rules at Stormont? The Ulster Unionist leader is Sir Reg Empey.

EMPEY ...Oh I think the Conservatives in any discussions we've had with them and the Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary Owen Paterson is quite open to the idea of seeing the development of a voluntary coalition. Now that would mean that parties would come together but they would have to clearly have a significant level of support in the Assembly, maybe a two thirds vote or something like that, and we're quite open to discussing those things. But we recognize you can't impose this, and I think it would be rash to rush in to destabilize the institutions too soon. But it's also clear we can't go on forever with everybody being in the government, with no opposition, and over time I think we should negotiate with the parties and test these things out. And we I believe between ourselves and the Conservatives we have a common view on that. But nothing is going to be done nor are we going to urge the Conservatives to do anything that's going to destabilize the institutions, but we do think they need to be modified over time. MD So we could be heading for a new round of negotiations, but nothing imposed over the head of the other parties? RE Yes I would like to do that.

However there's a word of warning for David Cameron from the nationalist MP Alasdair McDonnell, who I caught up with in his South Belfast constituency office.

FX McDONNELL ....Kate what's in the diary today?

Dr McDonnell's Social Democratic and Labour Party played a leading role in drawing up the checks and balances contained in the Good Friday agreement. They were designed to ensure that the Catholic minority wouldn't again be subjected to domination by the Protestant majority. And Dr McDonnell warns David Cameron to be cautious before contemplating any far reaching changes.

McDONNELL What we're trying to do in Northern Ireland is we're trying to create a shared space, an agreed space, an honest space where people now face realities. The political reality here is that well nigh half the population has a sense of identity in an Irish direction, the other half has a sense of identity in a British direction. Now, they're not all that far apart in global terms, the Irish identity, British identity, that we can't accommodate, that's what the Good Friday Agreement was all about, accommodating those two different stresses or stretches on people's affiliation, affinity. If David Cameron wants then to disrupt that, destabilize that then what he will do in effect is pull the whole thing apart and go back to the drawing board. And my fear would be that in that situation dissidents and others who are hovering around looking for an excuse at the moment, would get an opportunity to fill the vacuum that he might create. Certainly the process we have needs to be tidied up but it doesn't need to be blown away or changed or dismantled, and any effort to dismantle it would be very very foolish on David Cameron's part and I don't think he's that foolish.

The Conservatives have said they want to negotiate with the Northern Ireland parties to reform Stormont's power sharing structures, but the Irish News columnist Newton Emerson isn't convinced.

EMERSON I think the chances of tinkering by David Cameron are extremely low. It's always been a Conservative policy primarily to build a new power sharing institution. The bi-partisan approach at Westminster has paid great dividends for us in Northern Ireland and for all the parties at Westminster. There's no electoral advantage in tinkering with the system in England quite the opposite, plus how effective will the Ulster Unionists be as partners if they have only one MP after the next election, or maybe not even one, and one MP who's not very keen on the alliance. I think that there's not going to be much of a problem for the peace process with a change of government in England, not at all.