Pressure grows on IRA to stand down

The future of paramilitarism in Northern Ireland was today under the spotlight at talks on the future of the Good Friday Agreement as republicans continued to face demands for the standing down of the IRA.

Unionist parties have over the past 12 days been pressing for sanctions against Sinn Féin following the attempted abduction of dissident republican Bobby Tohill from a Belfast city centre bar.

Talks to restore devolution have been in crisis since Police Service of Northern Ireland Chief Constable Hugh Orde blamed the IRA for the kidnapping bid.

Last week Northern Ireland Secretary Paul Murphy and Foreign Minister Brian Cowen referred the incident to the four member Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) which was set up last year to assess paramilitary ceasefires.

The IMC has been asked to bring forward its first report to May.

But Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble argued yesterday the IMC should have been ordered to report back quicker and the review put on hold until they had come to a conclusion on whether the kidnapping was sanctioned by the IRA.

With Mr Trimble threatening that his party will not take part in any section of the review which does not deal with paramilitarism, Democratic Unionist leader the Reverend Ian Paisley put forward a four point plan last night for imposing sanctions against Sinn Féin at Stormont and Westminster.

The DUP leader said the British government should:

:: Exclude Sinn Féin from the talks process.

:: Cut the party’s allowances and privileges in the Assembly.

:: Curtail Sinn Féin’s funding and accommodation at Westminster.

:: Specify the IRA once again as a terrorist organisation.

Mr Trimble said if there was no effective exclusion mechanism for Sinn Féin in the current review of the Good Friday Agreement, it should be scrapped and replaced with a new process which had sanctions.

“If the government does nothing now then it is saying that it does not matter what happens,” he said.

“You can attempt to murder people, you can murder people and there will be no response.”

At his party’s annual conference in Dublin, Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness said the party had nothing to fear from any focus on paramilitarism in the review.

The Mid Ulster MP said his party would use the opportunity to press the British government on allegations of collusion between members of the security services and loyalist terror groups.

They would also seek answers from the DUP about its influence over Ulster Resistance and seek assurances from loyalist paramilitaries about their ceasefires.