Commission can revive peace process: Murphy

Northern Ireland Secretary Paul Murphy tonight insisted that a new monitoring body for the Good Friday Agreement and paramilitary ceasefires should provide enough confidence to revive the peace process.

As a frantic round of negotiations continued with Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble meeting Taoiseach Bertie Ahern in Dublin, Mr Murphy said the British government wanted elections and devolution to return.

During the opening of a new plant for Baileys Irish Cream in Newtownabbey, the Northern Ireland Secretary said: “This week we are going to put legislation through Parliament setting up the independent monitoring commission.

“That should give confidence to people in Northern Ireland that this independent monitoring body will be able to look at alleged paramilitary activity and also, in the case of the British members, look at breaches which pertain to the Good Friday Agreement.

“I believe that will help confidence building because at the end of the day it is about restoring the trust between the political parties.

“I think the people of Northern Ireland want their Assembly back. They want their Government back, but also they want to ensure that we tackle the underlying problems of continuing paramilitary activity and the sustainability of the Assembly which led to the breakdown in the political process nearly a year ago.”

Mr Murphy was commenting at the start of what is likely to be a crucial week for the process.

A frantic series of meetings involving the Irish and British Governments and political parties has been planned for the coming days while legislation creating the four-member monitoring commission is considered by MPs.

The commission will comprise Joe Brosnan who worked in the Department of Justice, former Assembly Speaker Lord Alderdice, John Grieve who headed the Metropolitan Police’s anti-terrorist unit, and former deputy director of the CIA in the United States, Richard Kerr.

Its role will be to report on paramilitary activity from both the IRA and loyalists, to monitor how the British government is implementing its pledges to scale down military installations and to examine whether parties are faithfully and fully operating the institutions under the Good Friday Agreement.

The British government has been hopeful that the commission will ease the unionists‘ concerns about IRA activity while Sinn Féin ministers serve in a devolved government.

However, UUP sources tonight claimed there was still unhappiness in the party with the monitoring body proposals.

A source said: “We are still in a situation where three of our MPs, Jeffrey Donaldson, the Reverend Martin Smyth and David Burnside are going to vote against the legislation.

“There has also been unease expressed at party meetings about whether this commission will actually be able to work.

“In particular people are concerned that the commission might not be able to take action against a party with paramilitary links while investigations take place into specific paramilitary activity, like involvement in gun running or intelligence gathering or links with other terror groups around the world.”

Sinn Féin, which has expressed its opposition to the commission, today insisted that if political progress was to be achieved Assembly elections would have to take place in the autumn in Northern Ireland.

Mid Ulster MP Martin McGuinness said: “The responsibility to sort all of the problems out in the process is a collective one.

“Everybody, if we are going to have any hope of success, is going to have to make their contribution.

“From our prospective as republicans there is huge anger at the way in which the situation was handled last April, but at the same time I think there is a focus on the need to have the Good Friday Agreement implemented in full and the institutions restored.

“How the IRA respond to an election, if it comes, is a matter for them. They will have to take their own counsel on these matters, but from our prospective at this time there is a big focus on what the British government is going to do on policing and the Human Rights Commission.”