DUP rules out face-to-face meeting with Sinn Féin

A senior member of the Rev Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionists today ruled out a face-to-face meeting with Sinn Féin until the IRA have disappeared.

As his party prepared for a ground-breaking meeting with Taoiseach Bertie Ahern at the Irish Embassy in London today, East Derry MP Gregory Campbell said republicans must address the future of the IRA before Sinn Féin could be treated like a normal political party.

Mr Campbell, who said the DUP would today urge the Irish Government to order an inquiry into allegations that Dublin ministers helped finance the IRA at the outset of Northern Ireland’s Troubles, said his party would be “confronting“ Sinn Féin only in plenary sessions of the review of the Good Friday Agreement which starts next Tuesday.

He told PA News: “We will be confronting them there as we have confronted them in the Assembly or in councils, but we will not be holding face-to-face discussions until the IRA has gone.

“Sinn Féin have benefited from the existence of the IRA and from the violence of the IRA.

“We will not have discussions with them either by the front door or the back door while they have the prop of violence and use it to elevate themselves over other parties.

“The existence of the IRA has been used by Sinn Féin as some sort of asset or ace card, with the threat of violence or explosions like Canary Wharf used to extract concessions.

“We will talk directly to normal, legitimate democratic parties but there will be no face-to-face meetings with Sinn Féin till the advantage of them having the IRA has gone.”

Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams yesterday challenged Mr Campbell to sit down with his party and discuss the future of the IRA and other armed groups.

The West Belfast MP said he also wanted to see the disappearance of the IRA.

The Sinn Féin president said: “If he wants to sit down and talk to us and help, we will help him and we will all try to bring about an end to all armed groups.

“If he is sending up preconditions and sitting outside of real dialogue, then it serves no good purpose.

“Bigger and better men than Gregory Campbell came on to this island with that objective in mind, going back through the history of the last century, and failed in it.

“The purpose of this peace process is to bring about a totally peaceful situation based on equity and lasting justice for all of its citizens. So rather than going to Switzerland and laying down ultimatums, let’s sit down, let’s discuss these issues.”

Mr Ahern was expected to take the Foreign Minister Brian Cowen and Justice Minister Michael McDowell to today’s meeting.

The DUP’s six MPs, including Ian Paisley, were due to face him.

It is the first face-to-face counter between Mr Ahern and the DUP leader in the peace process.

Both men previously met in Paisley’s role as the leader of the Free Presbyterian Church.

Mr Campbell said today's discussions would be exploratory, with both sides getting to know each other.

He said “nuts and bolts” of Northern Ireland’s relationship with the Republic would be dealt with in the coming weeks in the review of the Good Friday Agreement.

All of Northern Ireland’s Assembly parties will take part in the review under the joint chairmanship of British and Irish governments.

The DUP is hoping to secure significant changes to the Agreement.

However Sinn Féin and the SDLP insist the review will not be a renegotiation of the 1998 accord and are calling on both London and Dublin to press ahead with pledges they made on the Agreement and in last year’s joint declaration on the peace process.

Mr Campbell said the DUP would raise the controversial issue of the Irish Government’s role in the arming of the IRA in 1970.

Two Fianna Fáil ministers, Charles Haughey and Niall Blaney were expelled from the Irish Government after it was alleged they had helped import arms into Northern Ireland.

However, a district court in the Irish Republic acquitted them both.

Mr Haughey later became the Taoiseach.

Mr Campbell said today: “There has never been a satisfactory response to demands down through the years for an inquiry in the Irish Republic into what part that country played in financing of the Provisional IRA campaign of murder.

“Even though it is 30 years ago, if the British government can spend £150m (€218m) on investigating Bloody Sunday and the belief that UK citizens were gunned down by its soldiers, then I think there is a strong case to argue for an inquiry into the Republic of Ireland’s relationship with the IRA at the beginning of the conflict.

“We are not suggesting that the same sort of money be spent on an inquiry but we think there needs to be one to establish what went on.”

The Democratic Unionists became Northern Ireland’s largest political party in November’s Assembly election, replacing David Trimble’s Ulster Unionists.

There have been a number of defections from the Ulster Unionists to the DUP over the past month at a grass roots level since the departure of Lagan Valley MP Jeffrey Donaldson.

The most recent defections have taken place at branches in Lagan Valley, Mr Trimble’s constituency of Upper Bann and in Kilkeel in South Down.

Last night it emerged that members of the Ulster Unionist party’s youth wing, the Ulster Young Unionist Council has moved to disband in a protest over Mr Trimble’s leadership.