Reynolds reveals secret Shankill talks with Loyalist groups

FORMER Taoiseach Albert Reynolds yesterday revealed he held secret talks with loyalists in their Belfast heartland 10 years ago to secure their ceasefire.

Mr Reynolds confirmed he set foot on the Shankill Road months before the 1994 IRA ceasefire.

In a television interview broadcast in the North, Mr Reynolds said: "In the run-up to the (IRA) ceasefire I had a copy of the statement to be used by the Republican Movement on August 31 at 11am.

"I also had prior agreement with the Combined Loyalist (Military) Command to a complete loyalist ceasefire but it would not come into operation until the IRA ceasefire had at least passed six weeks."

The UDA, the UVF and the Red Hand Commando later announced a joint ceasefire through their umbrella body, the Combined Loyalist Military Command (CLMC), on October 16, 1994. Their statement came six weeks after the Provisional IRA announced its cessation.

At a dramatic press conference, former UVF leader Gusty Spence read a statement expressing "abject and true remorse" to the victims of loyalist violence.

But months before the CLMC ceasefire, Mr Spence took part in a clandestine meeting with Mr Reynolds in the Berkeley Court Hotel in Dublin to give loyalists an input into the peace process.

Mr Reynolds also revealed when he embarked on efforts to secure the ceasefires in the North he was advised at first not to engage loyalist leaders.

He told Ulster Television: "I was told by everybody it was a waste of time. There was no point in talking to them. I spoke to Gusty Spence on the phone.

"They came down to a Dublin hotel, a well-known hotel and I went to the Shankill Road and between all of us we worked it out."

The former Fianna Fáil leader, who along with former British Prime Minister John Major published the Downing Street Declaration in 1993, said his Shankill Road meeting involved Mr Spence and David Ervine of the Progressive Unionists.

Mr Reynolds also said paragraph five of the declaration, offering assurances to unionists that the Irish state would address anything which threatened their way of life, was crafted during the Shankill Road meeting.

The loyalist leadership, he said, was true to its word in delivering a combined ceasefire exactly six weeks after the IRA's.

However, within three years the Combined Loyalist Military Command broke up, a faction within the UVF split to form the Loyalist Volunteer Force and a series of bitter, bloody UDA feuds flared.

Mr Reynolds said he was "disappointed" by the break up of the CLMC and the divisions and criminality currently within loyalism.

The former Taoiseach, who controversially praised republican Joe Cahill following his recent death for his role in the peace process, described Gusty Spence as an "honourable man".