The First Minister of the Northern Ireland Assembly, Mr David Trimble, has called on church leaders in the North to organise a national day of mourning in memory of the people killed and injured in the Omagh bombing. The Ulster Unionist Party leader said a national day of mourning or "something akin to it" would allow people "to unite and express not just their grief but also their determination" that the explosion "will not deflect us from the way forward".
Mr Trimble extended his "deepest sympathy" to the bereaved and injured. He said the explosion was not just "appalling" because of the "horrific fatalities and injuries caused" but also because it comes at a time when hopes were raised that we "were moving".
He stressed that political discourse must continue and said his party would continue to do all it could to keep the peace process moving forward.
While the UUP leader said he expected problems to develop during the pursuit of peace, he never imagined anything on "such a devastating scale" as what happened in Omagh on Saturday.
Mr Trimble urged the Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, to end what he described as "word games" and say that the war was over. Confirmation from Mr Adams would go some way towards resolving unionist suspicions that republicans were not committed to the peace process.
Mr Trimble said that the deaths and injuries in Omagh would not have happened if the IRA had handed over its weapons and explosives. "Sinn Fein cannot escape its responsibility in this bloody atrocity. I wonder if this would have happened if the leadership of the republican movement several months ago had the courage to tell that movement that this process involves the ending of their campaign. I wonder if they had the courage to say to that organisation that the war was over, and the time had come for them to lay down their arms . . ." he said.
Condemning the bombing, Mr William Thompson, an Ulster Unionist Assembly member opposed to the Belfast Agreement, said the peace process was a "sham" following the attack. "This was a terrible act. It's very hard to understand what the reasoning of these people is. We have had bombs going off in several towns in Northern Ireland, and obviously the inevitable has happened and we see here in Omagh terrible injuries and fatalities," the West Tyrone MP said.
The Democratic Unionist Party and the UK Unionist Party said that while the blame must squarely rest with republicans, the British government must also share some responsibility. Mr Peter Robinson, deputy leader of the DUP, said the "massacre of innocent people" was a direct result of the British government "surrendering to terrorists".
"It is the NIO who spawned the process of buying off the terrorists and encouraging the gunmen and bombers. What have the terrorists who carried out yesterday's bombing got to fear? They know that Mo Mowlam lets terrorists out of jail and gives them seats in government," the East Belfast MP said.
The leader of the UK Unionist Party, Mr Robert McCartney, said Mr Blair's "appeasement" of paramilitary organisations made the attack inevitable. The peace process was a "charade". Mr Peter Weir, UUP Assembly member for North Down, condemned the murders and called for Sinn Fein to be excluded from the Assembly, due to reconvene in September, until "they genuinely prove they are committed to peace" and for no more prisoners to be released. "The Omagh bombing is the direct result of the appeasement of the terrorism and the continual fudging of the decommissioning issue," Mr Weir said.