Unionists have reacted angrily to a suggestion by the Northern Ireland Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam, that republican prisoners could get early release if the IRA ceasefire holds.
The Ulster Unionist security spokesman, Mr Ken Maginnis, accused Dr Mowlam of "surrendering to IRA blackmail". Mr Peter Robinson, the Democratic Unionist Party deputy leader, said the Secretary of State was "only interested in making concessions to republicans".
Sources at the Northern Ireland Office yesterday confirmed the early release of prisoners would still be "on the agenda" if the IRA ceasefire held. The issue was raised in response to comments made by Dr Mowlam when she suggested the possibility of "other options" for prisoners should the IRA ceasefire hold.
Unionist politicians accused Dr Mowlam of stepping outside the judicial process to enable Sinn Fein to take its place at talks in September. Mr Maginnis said Dr Mowlam's comments were "absolute and utter folly".
"I do not want to prejudge the situation. After internment internees were released as soon as the campaign came to an end and there was a de-facto examination of sentences. But the Secretary of State is playing her cards face up. She is playing their [the IRA's] game.
"It is a subtle form of blackmail. Allow me six weeks of uninterrupted ceasefire and with a vague promise - a `nod, nod, wink, wink, you will be at the negotiating table'. It is political interference in the judicial process," he said.
Mr Robinson said that, although unionists were not opposed to the transfer of prisoners closer to their families, confidence-building measures must be made to loyalist as well as republican prisoners. He added that Dr Mowlam had bought into an IRA ceasefire and would constantly have to pay the price in concessions to keep it going.
"The IRA have declared a ceasefire which by its very nature is temporary. They are going to review it in four months to see what they are getting out of it," he said.
After last week's meeting with the DUP leader, the Rev Ian Paisley, Dr Mowlam insisted she would "look at what we can do" in relation to the early release and transfer of IRA prisoners to Northern Ireland.
A programme, she said, was an important part of the Conservative government's policy on Northern Ireland. Following the IRA's 1994 ceasefire, 50 per cent remission was reintroduced and that level remained.
But while the Northern Ireland Office said the issue of prisoners was not on the table, sources confirmed it "could not rule something out that is on the agenda. We are not ruling anything out or anything in."
At the weekend a Sinn Fein delegation completed its programme of visits to 17 republican prisoners at Frankland and Full Sutton, near York, and Whitemoor and Belmarsh, in south London. Prisoners being held in Special Secure Units (SSUs) were described as particularly distressed by the closed visits regime and Sinn Fein has called for their immediate transfer to the main blocks of the prisons.
During their visit to Frankland prison, Dr Mowlam confirmed that an IRA prisoner, Sean McNulty, would be transferred to Northern Ireland. McNulty, who is in Frankland Prison, was sentenced to 25 years in 1984 for conspiracy to cause explosions at oil and gas depots in Newcastle.
McNulty joins a growing list of transfers of IRA prisoners during the last year, including Danny McNamee, who was convicted of the Hyde Park bombing in 1987.
Additional reporting by PA