All crime must end, says Hain

BRITAIN’S North Secretary Peter Hain said yesterday the IRA must not just give up bombs and bullets but must shut down everything, including beatings, criminality, targeting and the robbing of banks.

Mr Hain accepted the IRA had broken its word before and insisted all violence and crime had to end. The £26.5 million Northern Bank heist in Belfast and the killing of Robert McCartney outside a city centre bar has fuelled Unionist scepticism about whether the IRA will keep their word.

But with General John de Chastelain’s international disarmament body on standby to examine decommissioning and the Independent Monitoring Commission assessing its ceasefire, Mr Hain said every move would be studied.

He told the BBC: “It’s up to the IRA to deliver and they will be watched and we will be scrutinising everything.

“By actively shutting down I don’t just mean bullets and bombs, I mean punishment beatings, criminality, targeting and the robbing of banks.”

Mr Hain is set to call new talks with political leaders in a bid to restore devolution after the IRA ordered all units to dump arms and assist in the development of a democratic process to achieve a united Ireland.

Discussions are expected to begin in September, by which time the British and Irish governments hope the Provisionals will have completed decommissioning.