Anti-agreement unionist politicians have said the bombing of a Co Fermanagh hotel shows the need for decommissioning by the Provisional IRA. DUP MLA Mr Sammy Wilson said it did not matter that the attack was carried out by the Continuity IRA or that Sinn Fein had condemned it.
"The fact remains that the Continuity IRA is part of the republican community, which is still refusing to renounce violence and the means of violence. Through their refusal to give up guns, Adams and his gang are as culpable as the bombers."
Mr David Ervine, of the Progressive Unionist Party, the political wing of the UVF, said loyalists were viewing the bombing with dismay and were anxious to establish if the attack was definitely and solely carried out by the Continuity IRA. "If it is from the Continuity IRA, loyalists will listen to the condemnation of nationalism and republicanism and watch the efforts of the security services.
"But there is no doubt that, against the backdrop of already growing crisis, this is far from good news."
Mr Ervine said the bomb made loyalist decommissioning even more difficult to achieve.
Similar sentiments were echoed by Mr John White, of the Ulster Democratic Party, the political wing of the UDA. However, he urged people not to be deterred or to place too much significance on the Continuity IRA, as the vast majority of citizens in the North wanted peace.
"The ceasefires have been going six years almost and we have had quite a number of years in order to convince people of the merits of decommissioning."
The RUC Chief Constable, Sir Ronnie Flanagan, said he believed the bomb was the work of dissident republicans acting alone. He said they had wanted to carry out an attack "for some time" and he warned there should not be complacency about the possibility of further attacks.
The North's Deputy First Minister, Mr Seamus Mallon, expressed his "shock and anger" on behalf of the Executive at the bombing. He said it was clearly designed to frustrate the political process and undermine the Stormont Assembly. The North Education Minister, Sinn Fein's Mr Martin McGuinness, "unequivocally condemned" the bomb and called on the Continuity IRA to disband. "The people responsible for this bomb are not acting in the interests of republicanism or the Irish people. They have no support in our community."
The Irish Republican Socialist Party, the political wing of the INLA, said the bomb was counter-productive.
Alliance chief whip Mr David Ford said the bombers had "nothing to offer." The Northern Secretary, Mr Peter Mandelson, said the bomb was against the "expressed wishes of the people". He added: "What will it achieve? It will do nothing to resolve the political differences between us."
However, Mr Vincent McKenna, of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Bureau, said the "political outcry over a bomb in Fermanagh that injured nobody falls in stark contrast to the silence of the Secretary of State and the `Yes' men in the Assembly" over the continuing punishment attacks.
The bomb was condemned by the Workers' Party, which said it was carried out by people attempting to destroy the peace process and plunge the North into "the nightmare years of the past".
Republican Sinn Fein, in a statement yesterday, said it wished to repeat it had no military wing, nor was it the political wing of any other organisation.