The Ulster Unionist Party’s Justice spokesperson Tom Elliott MLA has responded to Martin McGuinness’s comments that the IRA dead were “the real heroes of the struggle”

Mr Elliott said:

“Less than six weeks ago Peter Robinson stood at the Maze Prison and said "There will be no shrine to terrorism, no glorification of terrorism, at Maze Long Kesh" and that any proposed script telling the story of the Troubles at the centre would be told with "sensitivity to victims of terrorism".

Martin McGuinness stood beside him and assured us “This building will only be a shrine to peace.”

Speaking in Londonderry yesterday, the very same Martin McGuinness assured us that dead IRA members were “the real heroes of the struggle”. There’s not much sign of the "sensitivity to victims of terrorism" Peter Robinson promised us there!

This chimes perfectly with an answer given to by the DCAL Minister Caral Ni Chuilin who told me  “I am not aware of any sports organisations which have grounds or trophies named after any deceased person whom all sections of the community recognise as having been a terrorist.”

In other words, if a section of the community chose not to regard the IRA as terrorists, then the shrine to Bobby Sands and the hunger-strikers would not be a terrorist shrine.

Quite clearly Martin McGuinness is operating to a different definition of hero than the rest of us. He is also operating with a different definition of terrorist. To him the IRA were heroes, so as far as he is concerned, any shrine to them at the Maze would obviously not be a shrine to terror.

One wonders if the DUP are operating to the same definitions. This is surely the only possible explanation for repeated DUP assurances that there will be no terrorist shrine at the Maze.”