Former republican prisoners have said turning part of the Maze prison into a memorial to the North's 30-year-conflict would help the peace process. Unionist politicians have expressed their opposition to the plans.
The H-Blocks, where thousands of republican and loyalist prisoners were housed and 10 IRA and INLA hunger-strikers died, now lies empty.
The republican ex-prisoners' group Coiste has called for part of the 360-acre site to be developed into a museum of the Troubles. The group held a conference yesterday in the new Island Centre in Lisburn, to discuss the proposals.
One of the organisers, Sinn Féin councillor, Mr Paul Butler, who served 15 years in the H-Blocks for killing a police officer, said a museum would help people not to repeat the mistakes of the past.
"It would be a crime if the place was bulldozed out of history. We think a museum can help strengthen the peace process. It can be something future generations can learn about and understand the failure of the past."
Mr Bulter agreed that to be successful, the museum must have the full backing of all sections of the community. "We have tried to reach out to ex-loyalist prisoners and unionists," he added.
The Maze is one of six sites the British government gave to the North's Executive to develop.
Although the Stormont administration is currently in suspension, a Maze consultative panel - set up to consider ways of developing the site - is continuing its work.
Belfast community worker, Mr Alan McBride, whose wife Sharon was killed in the IRA's Shankill bomb, also attended yesterday's conference. He expressed concern that a museum would be potentially divisive and could turn into "a republican project".
"If the exhibition included the cells of notorious republican or loyalist prisoners, I would find it very hard to visit," he said.
DUP Assembly member, Mr Edwin Poots, who refused to attend the conference, said: "The people behind the museum proposal will have a lot of work to convince the public and key influencers that this would not degenerate into a republican shrine."