‘Public confidence needed’ for progress on peace

ACHIEVING progress in the Northern Ireland peace process requires public confidence in the IRA’s decommissioning, Ulster Unionist Party leader David Trimble said yesterday.

The collapse of last week’s deal was not a conspiracy but a cock-up, said the former NI first minister.

As the Irish and British Governments maintained contacts with the Northern Ireland parties over the weekend, the blame game over last week’s fiasco at Hillsborough Castle also continued.

Admitting that his party was going into next month’s assembly elections on a less than positive basis, Mr Trimble said he was not optimistic about an early resolution to the present stand-off and public confidence in the IRA’s disarmament was still needed.

“The people need to be satisfied that there has been a genuine change. The time I fear will take more than the next few hours and days.”

Rejecting the accusation that the Republican movement was at fault, Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams said the unionists were the obstacle to progress and the difficulties will continue. The halting of the process last Tuesday had caused enormous damage, he said.

Stating that Mr Trimble knew what was coming from the IRA as he had seen its statement and also played a part in what Sinn Féin was to say, Mr Adams said his party had confirmed the sequencing with the unionists and the Governments.

“Republicanism delivered, and delivered big time, and kept to our commitments.” The decommissioning commission, headed by General John de Chastelain, had to be allowed to do its work, otherwise people could be chasing their tails over the arms issue, said Mr Adams.

According to SDLP leader Mark Durkan, the aim of last Tuesday was to sell the notion to the public ahead of the assembly elections that there was a dream ticket of the UUP and Sinn Féin on offer.

Yet these were the parties who had held the process back and this was reflected in the outcome. “Its like asking Bonnie and Clyde to look after the Church collection.”

The public were fed up with choreography and statements, but General de Chastelain needed more time, as his refusal to divulge details of the quantity of weapons decommissioned means the IRA know they can trust him.

Facing into a crunch meeting of the UUP’s ruling council on Wednesday, Mr Trimble said the public needed evidence that IRA guns were being destroyed to secure their support for Stormont power-sharing institutions.