There were champagne and confetti to greet the 46 Provisional IRA prisoners who left the Maze last Friday. Even al lowing for the joy of their relatives in welcoming the men home, this was a breathtakingly insensitive display.
It may not have been designed to rub salt in the wounds of many victims who watched the scenes of celebration on television, but it might as well have been. It was also in marked contrast to the discretion of the loyalist prisoners, most of whom tried to hide their faces from the waiting media and slip away as quickly as possible.
For many thousands of people, the early release of prisoners has been the most difficult part of the Belfast Agreement. We tend to forget that the suffering caused by the conflict is not confined to Ireland. There are many people in Britain and further afield who had no part in our hatreds, but whose lives have been bitterly scarred by them. Jane Gow, widow of the Conservative MP who was killed by an IRA car bomb in 1990, probably spoke for many of them last weekend. She said: "I sometimes feel overwhelmed by the injustice of it all. Any criticism of the peace process has become a form of blasphemy."
The miracle, for which we should all give thanks, is that so many people, on both islands, have been prepared to accept their own pain as part of the price that has to be paid for peace.
One thinks of Rita Restorick, whose son was the last British soldier to be killed in Northern Ireland, and of the way she has campaigned tirelessly for a peaceful settlement in a country which is not her own. Last week many families must have shared her feelings. "I think I have treated it in a rather detached way up to now, but actually seeing the men released, it just brings back all the emotion again and it is very hard." She had chosen, she added, "to hope that it will help the peace process".
Alan McBride's wife, Sharon, died in the bomb which devastated a fish and chip shop on the Shankill Road in 1993. On Friday he said: "I've had to accept it, but I've never felt it was just, quite the opposite. I've always thought this one part of the agreement was wrong and unjust. Having said that, we wouldn't have had the Good Friday agreement - or the peace process or the setting up of a government - if it hadn't included prisoner releases."
Where would we be without the moral courage of Alan McBride and so many others like him? At the very least, they challenge us to look again at our own attitudes to the release of the killers of Det Garda Jerry McCabe.
The Government insists that it was made absolutely clear at the time of the Belfast Agreement that the people responsible for his death would not qualify for early release. Sinn Fein denies this is what happened.
Whatever the truth of this argument, the key question remains: why should this difficult part of the agreement apply in Northern Ireland, but not in this State? The only obvious explanation is one of political expediency. The Government believes that public opinion down here would not wear the release of these particular killers.
I would not for a minute wish to cause further hurt to the family of Det Garda McCabe. There have been claims that Mrs Ann McCabe has already been given assurances that the men who killed her husband will not benefit from the early release scheme.
That puts the Government in an extremely difficult position, but there are broader issues here in relation to the Belfast Agreement and this Government's commitment to implementing it in a way which is seen to be fair and above board by both communities. This does not allow for secret assurances to be given to individuals, however great their claim on our sympathy.
Already it seems to many people in Northern Ireland that the murder of a member of the Garda Siochana is regarded by the Government and citizens of this State as morally different to the murder of an RUC man. By extension, it appears that we expect the widows and children of, say, the two community policemen murdered in Lurgan to bear a weight of injustice (albeit in the furtherance of peace) which is considered intolerable down here.
The fact that all the major political parties in the Dail have lined up to back the Government's stance, that the killers of Garda McCabe must not be released, has exacerbated suspicions that the agreement was always designed to mean different things in Dublin and Belfast. All the pious talk about equality of sacrifice was just that - talk.
There is now speculation that the men imprisoned for the killing of Det Garda McCabe will mount a legal challenge to the Government's decision and could be released as a result. If that does happen, it could turn out to be another case of the courts getting the Government off the hook. It will do nothing to help convince the victims that their sacrifice may help towards a lasting peace.
All this highlights yet again how far we have to go in building the kind of trust which will en able the victims of the past 30 years of violence to come to terms with their anger and pain. We have overcome many political hurdles, but the challenge of dealing with what the Belfast Agreement describes as the "deep and profoundly regrettable legacy of suffering" has hardly begun.
The release of paramilitary prisoners has reminded us of just how daunting that task will be. We have had commissions to look at what might be done to help the victims of violence on all sides, but we have not begun to understand the scale of the problem and the depths of anger that still exist. The complexity of public emotions over the release of paramilitary prisoners is just one indication of this. It is just part of what we have to deal with if we are to win the prize of a lasting peace.