IRA ‘must go out of business’ to allow peace

THE IRA must “go out of business” before the peace process can advance, Defence Minister Willie O’Dea said yesterday.

"Who, or who isn't, a member of the IRA Army Council at a particular time is a red herring, as far as I'm concerned," Mr O'Dea said. "What concerns me is the rescuing of the peace process."

Mr O'Dea also described the IRA's use of the words Óglaigh na hÉireann as "an insult to the memory of those who strove for Irish freedom".

He was speaking in Cork at the official opening of a military museum in Collins Barracks which houses one of the largest collections of Michael Collins memorabilia.

Museums like the Collins Museum serve "as a corrective to the attempts of some to distort the past in pursuance of a fictional historical mandate for the activities of today", he said. "This distortion and perversion extends to the abuse of language and phrases, particularly the corruption of the name Óglaigh na hÉireann.

"There is only one Óglaigh na hÉireann it is the Irish defence forces. The words Óglaigh na hÉireann appear proudly on the cap badge of every member of the defence forces, just as they appeared on the cap badges of their forebears in the Irish Volunteers.

"The attempted appropriation of this noble and historic title is an insult to the memory of those who, like Michael Collins, strove for Irish freedom and to those who stood ready to serve and defend this country since independence," he said.

Mr O'Dea said he wasn't concerned, nor had he been briefed in recent days by military intelligence, about who, or who wasn't, a member of the IRA Army Council.

"The central issue here is that Sinn Féin and the IRA are inextricably linked. The IRA has to go out of business for the peace process to advance.

"The peace process is in difficulty because the military wing of Sinn Féin is still in existence, still involved in criminality and paramilitarism."