Irish and British cabinet ministers have questioned the appropriateness of provisional republicans staging a protest on behalf of rearrested Shankill bomber Seán Kelly the day after the carnage of the London bombings.
The Ulster Unionist Party accused republicans of "spectacular stupidity" for staging the picket in support of Kelly who carried out the 1993 bombing that killed 10 people, including Kelly's IRA accomplice Thomas Begley.
Sinn Féin defended the propriety and timing of the protest.
British minister David Blunkett cancelled a visit to the Springvale Training Centre in nationalist west Belfast yesterday after 60 republicans, chiefly marshalled by former IRA prisoner Brendan McFarlane, staged a "Free Seán Kelly" protest outside the centre.
Upwards of 20 ministers from the European Union, including Minister for Social Affairs Séamus Brennan, attending a special conference in Belfast went to the centre, but Mr Blunkett stayed away.
Instead later yesterday Mr Blunkett met some of the trainees from the centre at Belfast City Hall. During the protest demonstrators and police were engaged in a brief face-to-face encounter, although there was no trouble.
Mr McFarlane accused Mr Blunkett of sneaking away.
"The reality is that instead of facing the reality of injustice he has snuck off somewhere else and they are running away from the problem and the issue," he said.
At a subsequent press conference Mr Blunkett implicitly criticised republicans for staging a protest in support of the Shankill bomber the day after the London bombings.
"I don't think I have to tell the British people, or the people of the United Kingdom or the Irish people what I think, because I think they can draw their own conclusions," he told The Irish Times.
Mr Brennan said he did not dispute the right of republicans to protest, but he questioned why the protest was staged directly after the London bombings.
"I can understand why people might feel this was their first opportunity to bring this issue to the attention of a British minister. But I think one could be critical of the fact that only yesterday we had the bombings in London.
"I think obviously the timing of the protest could have been better," added Mr Brennan.
UUP Assembly member Michael McGimpsey accused republicans of "spectacular stupidity", adding that he found it "astonishing that they staged a protest in support of a man who was responsible for the murder of 10 people in the Shankill bomb a day after the carnage in London.
"When you consider that this protest was staged in an area where Sinn Féin representatives are always calling for continued investment from Europe because of deprivation, it is more than just stupidity, it is biting the hand that feeds them," he added.
Sinn Féin said the protest was peaceful and justified and could not be linked to the London bombings.
It was "distasteful" of Mr Blunkett and others to make such a connection.
"It is making politics out of the London bombings," a spokesman said.
Kelly was released under licence under the early release scheme of the Belfast Agreement but was recently jailed after Northern Secretary Peter Hain ruled that he breached the terms of his release.
Kelly was to the forefront of a number of recent interface confrontations, although Sinn Féin said he supported the Belfast Agreement and was acting as a peacemaker on these occasions.
Mr Hain has not explained why Kelly was sent back to prison.