Ulster Unionist and Conservative peers yesterday angrily condemned British government plans for an amnesty for paramilitary fugitives or "on-the-runs".
The depth of bitterness on the issue was clearly demonstrated in a short discussion in the House of Lords.
During the discussion, the Labour spokesman, Lord Williams of Mostyn, repeatedly reassured peers that no conclusions had yet been reached.
Lord Williams was responding to a Conservative question about plans to deal with on-the-runs, or OTRs.
He said that when the proposals were published the government recognised it would be asking "an enormous amount of people who have been grievously wounded in one way or another" in Northern Ireland.
Whatever conclusions were reached on the issue, he said, there would be "very significant distress among large sections of the population."
Such feeling would not be overlooked, but he added: "I'm not sure that it can be entirely accommodated."
But in a stinging attack, a Conservative peer, Lord Marlesford, declared it would be "an affront to the fundamental principles of the British constitution" if any prime minister suggested he could influence or interfere with police operations.
It would be even more outrageous, he insisted, for a prime minister to suggest he could interfere with the judiciary.
"It is not for politicians to interfere in these fundamentals of our liberties," he said.
Lord Williams rejected any suggestion that the Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, had suggested interfering with the police or with the judiciary.
The Labour spokesman played down reports that a deal had already been agreed.
But the Ulster Unionist peer, Lord Maginnis of Drumglass, said it would be an "unacceptable anomaly" if people who had escaped justice were treated as if their crimes were unimportant, "as though terrorism was not terrorism".
He was joined in his criticism by a Tory peer, Lord Glentoran.
He said that, while a deal had not yet been agreed, "it does not behove a British Prime Minister to be doing deals of this sort, which have no relationship whatsoever to the Good Friday agreement, with common terrorists."
And there was more criticism from Baroness Park of Monmouth, a Conservative peer.
She insisted that the US could not take Britain seriously when it asked that IRA funding should be stopped when the government planned an amnesty for paramilitaries.