A museum commemorating paramilitaries who were jailed in Northern Ireland's infamous H-Blocks is the price the Democratic Unionists have paid for the redevelopment of the Maze Prison, the Ulster Unionist Party claimed today.
Ulster Unionist Assembly member Michael McGimpsey criticised the DUP after the British government announced yesterday that Deloitte Touche is to prepare a business plan for an international centre for conflict transformation on the 360-acre site near Lisburn.
The announcement coincided with Sinn Féin calling for a £10 million museum at the Maze which would retain some of the infamous prison's walls, watchtowers and H-blocks, along with the hospital where 10 republican hunger strikers died in 1981.
The party also suggested former loyalist and republican inmates, prison guards and soldiers stationed at the Maze should provide guided tours of the site.
Democratic Unionist MP Jeffrey Donaldson criticised their proposal and insisted republicans should not be allowed to turn the Maze Prison into an IRA shrine.
However former Stormont minister for culture Michael McGimpsey said the plans for the Maze already guaranteed a centre which republicans would turn into an IRA shrine.
"The DUP says a republican shrine is not on at the Maze. They say they will not allow Sinn Féin to build a shrine. It's too late. It's already there," said Mr McGimpsey.
"There's no point in anyone saying that this will not be a shrine. Republicans are treating it as such. They've already had one commemoration on it, so what's to stop them doing it again?"
The Government has set out plans for a 42,000-seater sports stadium on the site that would stage Northern Ireland soccer internationals, top rugby games, Gaelic Games and rock concerts.