‘Ignoring terrorism undermines governments’

The British and Irish Governments need to be honest about paramilitary violence in Northern Ireland if they are to have credibility, the leader of the nationalist SDLP claimed today.

Mark Durkan, who is Northern Ireland’s Deputy First Minister, said ahead of crucial peace process talks in the province tomorrow involving the Prime Minister Tony Blair and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern that the governments could not ‘‘turn a blind eye’’ to loyalist or republican violence.