The Northern security minister, Mr Adam Ingram, has said there will be no resignations or dismissals in the prison service over the murder in the Maze prison of the Loyalist Volunteer Force leader, Billy Wright, on Saturday.
"Resignations are not on the cards. Clearly it was a very embarrassing situation at the weekend, and one we could well have done without, and we don't want to see a repetition of it," he said at a press conference inside the Maze yesterday.
Pledging to increase security inside the prison, which has been strongly criticised by unionist politicians and the Prison Officers' Association, Mr Ingram said there could "never be any guarantee of complete security in a prison, and especially a prison of this nature". The Chief Inspector of Prisons for England and Wales, Sir David Ramsbotham, is to undertake "a full inspection" of the jail, Mr Ingram said.
He and the Northern Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam, had earlier held a crisis meeting with senior prison and security service officials and the Chief Constable of the RUC, Mr Ronnie Flanagan, following Wright's killing by armed INLA inmates.
Admitting there had been a number of "serious incidents" inside the prison, Mr Ingram said a programme of regular block searches, which had been due to begin early in the new year, would now start within days.
The remit of an inquiry into the escape in December of an IRA prisoner, Liam Averill, is to be extended to include Wright's murder.
This inquiry is being carried out by the head of security of the London prison service, Mr Martin Narey, and the governor of Nottingham prison, Dr Peter Bennett.
Mr Ingram said he expected its report on both incidents "very shortly".
The security minister said he had complete confidence in a new management team led by the prison governor, Mr Martin Mogg, who was appointed in October.
Mr Mogg admitted that there had been no regular searching of the blocks during the last eight weeks.
The burning of their wing by LVF inmates during the summer had "resulted in insufficient staff being available to carry on routine searching," he said.
Mr Ingram refused to be drawn on any details of the lapses of security that allowed INLA inmates to smuggle guns into the prison and to carry out the gun attack on Wright, saying he would not preempt the inquiry or the RUC investigation.
He said it was important to remember the "unique" nature of the Maze.
"This prison is unique in the whole of the democratic world. Nowhere else is there such a concentration of dedicated paramilitaries and terrorists, and that does make a very unique situation."
Mr Ingram rejected allegations by the Democratic Unionist Party, which had called for a completely independent inquiry, that the situation in the Maze was a result of the wider political policies of the Northern Ireland Office.
The security minister said that both he and the Northern Secretary were answerable to parliament for the decisions they made. There were "political dimensions" to everything that was done in Northern Ireland.
"We are in the middle of a peace process. All of us have got to try to push that process forward. These are difficult and delicate issues and indeed sensitive issues to deal with," he said.
Mr Finlay Spratt of the Prison Officers' Association welcomed the planned inspection of the prison by Sir David, but said his officers were working in "an impossible situation" because of the policies pursued by the British government.
He said regular searches should always have been a feature of the prison, and that those running the prisons had been "making concessions year after year to the inmates".