The Ulster Unionist Party has condemned the way in which today's cenus figures for Northern Ireland were collated and called for an end to what it describes as a 'sectarian headcount.'
Speaking following the publication of the figures this morning, UUP member and Northern Ireland environment minister, Mr Dermot Nesbitt, said the process of obtaining the information had been conducted in a "poor and utterly divisive fashion."
Mr Nesbitt also accused Sinn Féin of manipulating the figures in an attempt to put their own 'spin' on them and turn Northern Ireland into a "cold-house" for Unionists.
"Their rather feeble attempts to force Unionists in to some kind of siege mentality have backfired on them . . .," Mr Nesbitt said,
"Ther are the ones who are intimidated by change, intimidated by ethnic and religious difference, scared to celebrate our strengths, but content to live merrily in the Nationalism and associated violence of Europe in the 1930s."
Today's comments come in the wake of a call earlier this week by Ulster Unionist MP Mr Jeffrey Donaldson that unionists should have some form of veto over any change to the constitutional status of Northern Ireland.
Mr Donaldson's call for a form of minority consent before change was dismissed out-of-hand by Sinn Fein's Ms Bairbre de Brún who said Mr Donaldson's comments were farcical. "It is totally absurd for Jeffrey Donaldson to suggest that change can be blocked even in the event that a majority of people vote for a united Ireland," she said.
The SDLP's Dr Sean Farren said that in the case of a united Ireland that "the safeguards contained in the Good Friday agreement that apply to nationalists in the current constitutional arrangement would also apply to unionists, were that constitutional arrangement to change."
Today's census for the North indicates a Catholic population of around 44 per cent and a Protestant population of 53 per cent.
The actual Protestant/Catholic breakdown also indicates those who declare themselves as practicing Protestants at under 50 per cent but when the community background figure is applied - i.e. were they brought up Catholic or Protestant - that figure rises to about 53 per cent, the sources said.