The Taoiseach's former adviser on Northern Ireland today said the police raid on Sinn Féin's offices in Stormont had yet to be fully justified.
Senator Martin Mansergh said it was extraordinary a party's offices could be raided in such a manner.
"I think they are very serious developments and as [Foreign Minister] Brian Cowen has said, we need to keep an open mind, and indeed I think we need to be wide awake," Mr Mansergh said on RTÉ's Morning Ireland.
"It is an extraordinary thing in any democracy for the parliamentary offices of a political party to be heavily raided by a police force. I mean this is the sort of thing you associate more with . . . Turkey, President Mugabe . . . countries that are sort of semi-democratic.
"If, suppose, the Fine Gael party had some sort of leaked government documents and there were a Garda raid on Fine Gael headquarters and tonnes of loads of documents were taken away, there would be a huge furore," Mr Mansergh said.
He also questioned the timing of the raids. "If some of this dates back a year why the particular timing? I'm not at all sure for example the Irish Government was consulted about this or have been given any detailed information about what precisely is going on".
Also speaking on RTÉ, Mr Stephen King, adviser to Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble, agreed there was a very serious situation but said any allusion to a Mugabe regime was "monstrous".
"We are all going to pay for this, it looks as though the Assembly and executive can't continue in their current form, for the moment, and we're all going to pay for this, not just Sinn Féin," he said.