Paramilitaries need to be tackled - SDLP

The continued existence of paramilitaries in Northern Ireland needs to be addressed if the deadlock over devolution is to be broken, nationalist SDLP leader Mark Durkan claimed today.

Just hours after Police Service of Northern Ireland Chief Constable Hugh Orde blamed the IRA for the attempted abduction of a man in Belfast city centre last night, Mr Durkan said if there was to be a return to power sharing, the future of paramilitaries would have to be addressed.

Mr Durkan also said there was a challenge for unionist parties to guarantee that they would fully operate the political institutions and not seek to exclude others.

“The continued existence and activities of private armies causes damage, doubt and distrust which has wounded the institutions to the point of suspension,” he said.

“The failure of unionist parties to convincingly embrace and sustain inclusive institutions has similarly wounded the Agreement.”

Mr Durkan said his party remained committed to the Good Friday Agreement and was not on the back foot in the review currently taking place at Stormont involving the two governments and the Assembly parties.

While the Rev Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionists, the Ulster Unionists, Sinn Féin and the cross-community Alliance Party were considering alternatives or plan Bs, the SDLP had set its sights “on a new, improved plan A: the Agreement with added clarity, reduced ambiguity and the ambivalence taken out”.

Following the recent release of the Democratic Unionists’ proposals for restoring devolution, Mr Durkan noted that the party floated the idea of a return to a power sharing mandatory coalition government at Stormont.

But the Foyle MLA asked: “Can the DUP clarify unmistakably that they will not ask for anything more than the Blair necessities for them to play their part in forming and performing in an inclusive executive and North-South Ministerial Council?

“Equally, unmistakable clarity will be needed from Sinn Féin and/or the IRA.

“Will they give unambiguous and irreversible commitments to completion if the new unionist leadership can give unambiguous and irreversible commitment to the restoration and operation of inclusive institutions in that context?

“It would also be important to have reliable clarity from both governments that such a scenario of completion and restoration would mean an end to all the side deals, sub-deals and pseudo-deals which have been allowed not just to interrupt but to corrupt the Agreement.”