Prospective Conservative Party leader Michael Howard has had a long and turbulent relationship with Ireland.
He was once said by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern to be frustrating the north's peace effort and has angered public sentiment with a decision to release Lee Clegg from prison and then locking up Roisin McAliskey when pregnant.
In October 1993 the then British Home Secretary sparked controversy when he excluded Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams from Britain in the aftermath of the Shankill bomb.
Two years later, Mr Howard was again criticised after his decision to release on license British paratrooper Lee Clegg.
Clegg had received a life sentence after being convicted of the murder of teenager Karen Reilly, who was shot dead in a stolen car in west Belfast in 1990.
He was allowed to return to his regiment – a move which provoked widespread rioting across Belfast and in Derry.
In 1997, he came under fresh fire from then Fianna Fail leader Mr Ahern, who accused Mr Howard of frustrating the peace process.
At the time, Mr Ahern indicated that if his party were returned to power it would favour dealing with the Northern Ireland Office, rather than the Home Office on the issue of transferring IRA prisoners from Britain to Ireland.
Speaking in March 1997 Mr Ahern said he had concluded "a long time ago" that Mr Howard was behind the difficulties surrounding transfer.
He accused Mr Howard of "unreasonable acts of authority" and operating a regime of "constant petty tyranny".
Over the years, Mr Howard came under continuous criticism for his "negative influence on Irish policy" particularly in relation to the conditions for Irish prisoners in British jails.
He was home secretary during the widely condemned incarceration of pregnant mother Roisin McAliskey.
Ms McAliskey was arrested in 1996 under an extradition warrant from Germany in connection with a bomb attack on the British army barracks at Osnabruck.
It was reported that concerns for her health and her living conditions prompted a move from Belmarsh high security men's prison to Holloway women's prison.
A failed bail application in December 1996 was described by Roisin's mother, former nationalist MP for Mid-Ulster Bernadette McAliskey, as another "little perversion" engineered by Mr Howard.
In July 1995, Sinn Féin's Mitchel McLaughlin described Mr Howard's track record in advancing peace in Northern Ireland as "nothing short of disgraceful".
