Loyalist violence is increasingly filling the political vacuum, the Sinn Fein leader, Mr Gerry Adams, has said after a spate of loyalist attacks, in the latest of which a Catholic primary school was targeted.
There was widespread condemnation after a suspected loyalist pipe-bomb was discovered at St Mary's Primary School in Ballymena, Co Antrim, yesterday morning. British army bomb disposal experts were called to defuse the device.
Police said the bomb was similar to the device that killed Ms Elizabeth O'Neill in Portadown early on Saturday morning. Chief Inspector Bill Woodside, the local sub-divisional commander of the RUC, said it beggared belief that anyone could plant such a bomb at a school.
"Children or members of staff could have been killed, particularly had any of them picked up or moved the device. This can only be viewed as an attack on the whole Catholic community in Ballymena and should be condemned by all right-thinking people," he added.
Mr Adams said he had contacted the British and Irish governments and is seeking an urgent meeting with the Northern Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam, to call for the reconvening of the Downing Street discussions aimed at breaking the impasse over decommissioning and the formation of an executive.
"The vacuum generated by the failure to implement the Good Friday agreement is being increasingly filled by loyalist bomb and gun attacks on nationalists, and the wholesale intimidation of the Garvaghy Road community," he said.
The DUP leader, the Rev Ian Paisley, described the attempted bombing as "mindless stupidity", serving no other purpose than "blood lust".
"Have these people not seen the harm such bombs have done across Northern Ireland in the last 72 hours? Such activists are not wanted in Ballymena. On behalf of the entire community, I am telling them to get out and stay out. They will destroy this town and they present only negativity," said Dr Paisley.
The SDLP and Alliance parties also condemned the incident.
Meanwhile, Mr James McCarry, a Sinn Fein councillor from Ballycastle, Co Antrim, said his home was attacked on Sunday night. He said "some sort of pellet weapon" was used and it was only through good fortune that neither he nor his family was injured. He blamed loyalists.
A rally, which was to have been held next Sunday in support of Garvaghy Road nationalists objecting to the Drumcree Orange Order march on July 4th, has been postponed in an attempt to dampen tension.
A mini-12th Orange Order parade is to go ahead in Portadown on Saturday.
