Adams: Don’t you trust Sinn Fein?

Gerry Adams tonight put the integrity of leadership on the line over claims that republicans have engaged in terrorist activity.

With another crisis in the Northern Ireland peace process looming, the beleaguered Sinn Fein president urged people to believe his vehement pleas that provisionals have not broken their ceasefire.

‘‘Do people trust the Sinn Fein leadership in our endeavours to make this work?

‘‘That’s what it comes down to and people need to make that judgment for themselves,’’ he said.

‘‘The integrity of the Sinn Fein leadership is always on the line all the time. We were told before there was a peace process that there couldn’t be a peace process.’’

Pressure on Mr Adams from unionists has been intensifying with calls on him to ‘‘come clean’’ on the involvement of republicans in recent terrorist operations.

It followed claims that the IRA was behind last month’s break-in at a Special Branch office in Belfast, and in drawing up a hit list of prominent Conservative politicians.

Further reports at the weekend that the terror group has brought in new weapons from Russia has placed severe strain on the power-sharing Stormont administration.

Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble today called on the Sinn Fein leadership to demonstrate that it was still in control of the republican movement.

Mr Trimble, who was speaking after a meeting with police chiefs in Belfast, is facing pressure from hardliners in his own ranks to impose sanctions on Sinn Fein Ministers.

‘‘It must be obvious to Mr Adams and Mr McGuinness that continuing paramilitary activity from the republican organisation threatens their political project and that it is hugely in their interests for that paramilitary activity to diminish and to cease,’’ he said.

His call came as the Ulster Unionists tabled a motion in the Stormont Assembly calling on the Secretary of State to make a determination on the status of the IRA’s cessation and outline the action he intended to take.

Mr Trimble called on other unionists to support this rather than a ‘‘knee-jerk’’ motion to exclude Sinn Fein from the power-sharing administration.

But the Rev Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionists responded to Mr Trimble’s move by announcing that it would table a motion to remove Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness and Bairbre de Brun from the power-sharing government.

North Belfast MP Nigel Dodds urged Mr Trimble to back his party’s motion.

‘‘David Trimble is simply trying to shift the responsibility on to the British Government instead of taking this issue by the horns.

‘‘I would urge his party to face up to their responsibility to remove Sinn Fein/IRA from ministerial office and back our motion instead.’’

Meanwhile, Tory leader Ian Duncan Smith said today that he had been assured by Tony Blair that he regarded the compiling by the IRA of a ‘‘hit list’’ of senior Conservatives as unacceptable.

Following a meeting in Downing Street with the British Prime Minister and Northern Ireland Secretary Dr John Reid, Mr Duncan Smith said that Mr Blair had assured him that he was treating the discovery of the list with the ‘‘utmost seriousness’’.

After the meeting, Dr Reid said that ministers did take the compiling of the list seriously but at the moment did not believe there was any threat to the IRA ceasefire.

‘‘I think it is important to stress that we take these matters very seriously,’’ he said.

But he urged caution about rushing to judgement on the basis of speculation, repeating his assertion that there was no evident threat to the IRA ceasefire.

‘‘I don’t think any of us should rush to judgment on the basis of speculation.

‘‘The information that I have is that there has been no enhanced threat to any individual politician at Westminster in any party. That is the security advice I have received.

‘‘In this case the assessment was there was no increased threat,’’ he added.