First Minister Arlene Foster has said she is bemused by those critical of proposals for a bridge or tunnel connecting Northern Ireland and Great Britain.
Deputy First Minister Michelle O Neill, on the other hand, described such a project as a pipe dream of Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
It comes after it was announced that an official feasibility study including examining potential for either a Boris Burrow or Boris Bridge , as they have been dubbed, is to get under way.
Transport expert Sir Peter Hendy - who was reappointed as Network Rail chairman yesterday - was asked by the UK Government to examine how to keep the Union connected and he has now said work should be carried out to look at a fixed link across the Irish Sea.
Stormont’s deputy First Minister has accused the UK Government of treating the devolved institutions with “contempt”.
Sinn Fein’s vice-president claimed proposals for a bridge between Scotland and Northern Ireland were about diverting attention from the UK’s “reckless” approach to Brexit.
She said they would be better off spending any money earmarked for an Irish Sea span on boosting healthcare staff pay.
The pipe dream bridge between the North and Scotland is a smokescreen for the Brexit fallout amongst the unionists who engineered it on both sides of the Irish Sea.
Ms O’Neill said: “The bridge is a pipe dream and it is more of an (act) to create a smokescreen in terms of the British Government’s reckless and partisan approach to Brexit that is all about deflection.”