Following the explosion at the BBC building in London, the Sinn Fein Assembly member, Mr Gerry Kelly, has described the "Real IRA" as an unrepresentative organisation set on destruction.
"They are a micro group. They have a wreckers' charter. They are anti-peace process and they are trying to wreck the whole idea of moving out of conflict and sorting out the situation," he said.
The Ulster Unionist security spokesman, Mr Ken Maginnis, urged both governments to consider internment. He said the authorities knew the identity of "Real IRA" leaders.
The British Home Secretary, Mr Jack Straw, said it was essential that the terrorists did not succeed in wrecking the Northern Ireland peace accord. "What is crucially important is that we don't allow this kind of mindless attack, which could have led to a very considerable loss of life, to disrupt that process," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
The shadow Northern Ireland secretary, Mr Andrew Mackay, told the same programme that the attack showed it would be a mistake to reduce security and the role of the RUC.
Meanwhile it emerged that the dissident republican who planted the bomb outside the BBC Television Centre in London may have been in a road rage incident before the explosion, police said yesterday.
A witness has told police that he was "cut up" by someone driving a red taxi late on Saturday night a few hours before a similar vehicle parked outside the Television Centre blew up.
"The two motorists started yelling at each other, and a witness believes they had an altercation," the Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Mr Alan Fry, said at a press conference at a car depot in north London where the taxi was bought by a man with a Northern Irish accent. "Did anyone else come across this driver of the taxi on Saturday?"
Appealing for people to come forward with details of suspicious activities, such as anyone seeking to rent lock-up facilities for cash and "no questions asked", Mr Fry said his information confirmed that the so-called "Real IRA" had planted the bomb. Police sources said they believed a dissident republican cell, with up to 10 members, was operating in London.