The SDLP leader, Mr John Hume, has described the escape from prison of an IRA man convicted of two murders as a "hiccup" and said people should not overreact to it.
Mr Hume said yesterday that he didn't understand why people were turning the escape of Liam Averill from the Maze Prison last Wednesday into "a major political issue". He said the objective should be to create the circumstances where nobody would be going to prison "and more importantly nobody going to their grave".
Averill (32), from Maghera, Co Derry, was given two life sentences for the 1994 double murder of former UDR man Mr Alan Smith (40) and his friend, Mr John McCloy (28), in Garvagh. He had served two years of his sentence and escaped during a Christmas party for inmates' partners and children, by dressing in women's clothes and leaving on a mini-bus with the visitors.
The Northern Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam, has announced the setting up of an inquiry into the escape, which will be carried out by the head of security of the London prison service, Mr Martin Narey, and the governor of Nottingham prison, Dr Peter Bennett.
It will examine the procedures used "to control the movement of and accounting for prisoners moving outside accommodation blocks" and examine the procedures for the control of visitors to the prison.
Unionists reacted angrily to comments made by the Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, in a radio interview yesterday when he wished Averill good luck. "While there are prisoners, there will be prisoners who try to escape. I tried it myself. Liam Averill succeeded where I didn't. Good luck to him," he said.
Some republican sources expressed surprise at the suggestion that the escape would be used for propaganda purposes on the eve of Mr Adams's visit to Downing Street to meet the British Prime Minister. "The spotlight was on Gerry Adams. They didn't need anything for propaganda," one source said.
The escape is also likely to jeopardise parties for inmates' families, and the escape of one prisoner is likely to have the same implications for all other inmates as a mass escape. The Orange Order criticised Mr Blair for going ahead with his meeting with Mr Adams in light of the escape and the Sinn Fein leader's reaction to it. The Order's grand secretary, Mr John McCrea, said as Mr Adams had "given a message of good luck to a convicted terrorist of the IRA", Mr Blair's action was "despicable" and was "not that of a statesman".
The Ulster Unionist Party was also critical of the meeting between Mr Blair and the Sinn Fein leader. Reacting to a Sinn Fein call for Mr David Trimble to meet Mr Adams, security spokesman Mr Ken Maginnis said his party "would not be meeting any member of the IRA until such time as there is an expression of remorse" for its actions.
Mr Nigel Dodds, of the Democratic Unionist Party, said however that if the Ulster Unionists meant what they said about the Downing Street meeting, they should "bring the present concession charade to an end". He said it was no use complaining about the meeting when they had sat at the same table at Stormont with Mr Adams.
The parties "who prop up the nationalist-oriented talks process" were partly to blame for the meeting, and for "the raft of concessions to the IRA and nationalism", Mr Dodds said.
Meanwhile, SDLP negotiator, Mr Sean Farren, said last night that the SDLP had based its model for North/South institutions on the European Council of Ministers and that there would be "no possibility that a nationalist majority would combine to coerce unionists into decisions they opposed".