Another internal row has erupted in the North's human rights organisation, Families Against Intimidation and Terror (FAIT), after its spokesman, Mr Vincent McKenna, publicly named two men allegedly behind the Omagh bombing.
The comments were deplored as "unhelpful" by the director of FAIT, Mr Sam Cushnahan, who stressed that it pursued a policy of abiding by the wishes of the RUC, Garda and the Omagh victims that suspects should not be named while investigations are ongoing.
The current dispute is the third instance of internal wrangling within the organisation in recent years. Mrs Nancy Gracey, who founded FAIT in 1990, left it in 1996 under acrimonious circumstances and last October the group split from its previous spokesman, Mr Glyn Roberts.
Mr Cushnahan has issued a statement distancing the organisation from the comments made by Mr McKenna to the UK Unionist Party conference last weekend, at which he was a guest speaker.
Mr Cushnahan added that FAIT had no evidence to support another claim made by Mr McKenna that the Provisional IRA leadership had sanctioned the Omagh attack.
However, Mr McKenna yesterday denied any rift and said he had met Mr Cushnahan to explain the context in which his comments had been made. He said he had acknowledged that he did not have authority to "name and shame" on behalf of FAIT.
The UKUP leader, Mr Robert McCartney, said he was unaware that Mr McKenna had intended to name people allegedly involved in the August 15th atrocity.
Mr McKenna told The Irish Times that the names had been mentioned in a "social" and "casual" context and had been "blown out of proportion". Mr McKenna is a former member of the Provisional IRA who was held on remand in Belfast's Crumlin Road jail in the 1980s after a spate of firebomb attacks.
Since 1991 he has campaigned against paramilitary violence. "I didn't get up to grandstand. If I wanted to I could name 200 names and cause some real embarrassment," he added.
Mr Cushnahan maintained that the management committee had issued a warning to Mr McKenna before Saturday's conference that remarks made by him "even in a personal capacity" would have implications for the organisation because of the "high profile" he had adopted.