Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain tonight faced demands to intervene in a deepening row over a planned memorial stone at the site of the Omagh bomb explosion.
As incensed relatives of those murdered in the Real IRA atrocity confronted Victims Minister David Hanson over alleged resistance to the monument by the town's republican-dominated council, political pressure on the Government to resolve the controversy intensified.
Democratic Unionist MLA Ian Paisley Jr revealed he has written to Mr Hain demanding action after hearing the families' frustrations at their eight-year wait for the scheme to be finalised.
Mr Paisley said: "He should intervene immediately and instruct that the monument is installed the way the victims want it.
"He should cut through all the bureaucracy and double dealing by certain elements within the council." The DUP Assemblyman spoke out as the controversy overshadowed Mr Hanson's visit to Omagh to open a new £1.7 million refurbishment of the town centre.
The minister held separate talks with relatives of some of the 29 people — including the mother of unborn twins — killed in the August 1998 dissident republican attack.
Mr Hanson was told of their anger at being told a document of words they had submitted for the memorial should go out to wider consultation.
Michael Gallagher, whose son Aiden was among those who died in the blast, said: "We left the minister in no doubt about the depth of feeling at the failure to have the memorial erected.
"We told him there were failings in his office, the Secretary of State's office and Omagh District Council. "This was something everyone was aware of months ago and yet they decided to ignore the families' wishes and airbrush over the fact a memorial was promised and would be erected for the opening of the street. "He's the Victims Minister and should be fighting our corner. I told him across the table we will judge him on his actions rather than his words." The inscription proposed by the families was submitted earlier this year.
It was to read: "To honour and remember 31 people murdered and hundreds injured, from three nations, by a dissident republican terrorist car bomb."
But after a working group involving council representatives said it wanted to have the monument ready by 2008 to mark the tenth anniversary of the bombing, the local authority come under mounting criticism.