‘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.

Mr Durkan insisted both sets of paramilitaries needed to accept responsibility for street clashes and ‘‘restore calm,’’ while unionists needed to pull back from the idea of sanctions which could destabilise the peace process.

As he visited the city of Newry, Mr Durkan told PA News that republican and loyalist politicians needed to ‘‘take responsibility and do much more to restrain their people and restore calm on the ground and help to restabilise confidence more widely.

‘‘Beyond that, I also believe that a new honesty is needed on the part of both governments and a new maturity on the part of some political parties.

‘‘The Governments need to be honest and credible. When they know that loyalist or republican paramilitaries have been involved in wrongdoing, they should be able to say so.

‘‘Simply turning a blind eye only encourages those paramilitaries to believe that they can get away with what they like, that there is some sort of violence quotient that is accepted as part of the currency of this process.’’

Mr Durkan said when the governments refused to publicly acknowledge paramilitary involvement in violence, it undermined the credibility of the wider political process despite all the good work of the power sharing institutions.

‘‘Pressure needs to be brought on the paramilitaries - even if just for a starter it is the pressure of an honest reflection by both governments,’’ he continued.

‘‘There is something wrong when the actions of paramilitaries leads to pressure on democratic parties and democratic institutions rather than the anti-democratic elements behind this violence.’’

Earlier after talks in Downing Street, Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble called on the British Prime Minister to ‘‘get on top’’ of the violence in Belfast and breaches of the IRA ceasefire.

The Northern Ireland First Minister said Mr Blair had to end the ‘‘halfway house’’ of the IRA claiming to keep to its ceasefire while it engaged in street disturbances.

‘‘The short-term objective for him is to deal with the ongoing violence that has been happening in Belfast and elsewhere over the course of the last few weeks and months,’’ Mr Trimble said.

‘‘What he has to do tomorrow is to make it clear to the people of Northern Ireland that this Government is determined to get on top of that violence, that it is determined to ensure that the law is enforced and that the authorities will be taking measures to that effect.’’

Mr Trimble and his colleagues were urged today by Deputy First Minister Durkan not to convulse the political institutions ‘‘every time paramilitaries run amok or intelligence sources plant stories.

‘‘That only lets them set the agenda. It simply plays into the hands of those who are only quite happy to benefit from political instability and community insecurity.

‘‘I would also ask those who are trying to set tomorrow up as a day of sanctions: where or when in the history of this process have the governments even looked at a possible stick without starting to wash carrots with another hand?

‘‘Unionists have always complained about those carrots subsequently.’’