Northern Ireland Secretary Dr John Reid tonight hit out after developers flattened a former Belfast home of Nobel Laureate Mr Seamus Heaney.
Outraged neighbours looked on in disbelief as a bulldozer moved in to demolish the house where the poet once lived.
Politicians on all sides and environmentalists denounced the demolition as an act of vandalism. It was while he lived in the house on Ashley Avenue, close to Queen's University, where he taught for seven years, that Mr Heaney compiled some of his most famous work.
The developers insisted they had broken no law because the vacant and derelict building was not listed. Though he stressed it was a matter for the Northern Ireland Assembly, Dr Reid indicated his dismay at the move.
He said: "Like everyone else I believe if we have symbols of our culture and our history which mean so much to so many people they should be preserved wherever possible."
Campaigners battling to save the property were forced to admit defeat when demolition work on the house in the south of the city started last night.
The Northern Ireland Environment Minister, Mr Dermot Nesbitt, had earlier said his officials had been instructed to contact the developer in a bid to stall work.
Insisting he had no reason to believe the house was about to be knocked down, Mr Nesbitt said: "I made sure the developer knew what we were doing in reconsidering the listing issue. I say shame on him."
Although the wrecking work was perfectly legal, Mr Nesbitt's colleague in the Stormont power-sharing cabinet, Culture Minister Mr Michael McGimpsey, was furious.
With Belfast battling to land the prestigious City of Culture title for 2008, Mr McGimpsey said campaigners could ill-afford to lose such a significant landmark.
The Co Derry poet had lived in the house between 1967 and 1973. "This is an outrage and people in the area are incensed," Mr McGimpsey said. "In the year in which Belfast is bidding to become the UK City of Culture this is a downright scandal." PA