IRA 'the most ruthless killing machine in the whole of the western world'

The IRA was the most ruthless killing machine in the western world, the Northern Assembly has been told.

Members debated the killing of Kevin McGuigan (pictured) in Belfast by members of the Provisional IRA last month.

The DUP's Maurice Morrow said the organisation had been responsible for four murders since the ceasefires which were supposed to have ended the decades-long conflict in the North.

“No one needs any reminding of the ruthlessness of the Provisional IRA, the most ruthless killing machine in the whole of the western world.”

He said now was a “watershed” moment for the North.

He was debating a motion on the killings of Mr McGuigan and Jock Davison in the Stormont Assembly.

“This is not the first murder, this is four of recent times excluding those that have gone before that,” he said.

Others he connected to the IRA included the killings of Robert McCartney in 2005 and Paul Quinn in 2007.

Ulster Unionist Mike Nesbitt said his members would not be voting in the Assembly debate.

The has said the IRA still exists but Sinn Féin insists it went away a decade ago.

Mr Nesbitt said: “Sinn Féin and the PSNI need to be on the same page about the condition of the IRA in 2015. Otherwise there is no confidence, there is no trust, there is no credibility.”

Senior Sinn Féin member Gerry Kelly said it was a pseudo-crisis manufactured by political unionism and that the IRA left the stage in 2005 and was not coming back.

“Whosoever was involved in those killings, whatever connection they may claim to Irish republicanism, they are criminals who have been involved in murder.”