Murphy announces sanctions against SF

Northern Ireland Secretary Paul Murphy today announced financial sanctions against Sinn Féin following the Northern Bank robbery.

He said the decision on exclusion would have been very different if the robbery had occurred while the Assembly was still in operation.

Mr Murphy said it was inconceivable for Sinn Féin to hold ministerial office while the issue of paramilitary activity and criminality by the Provisional IRA remained unresolved.

He said it would be appropriate to remove Sinn Féin's entitlement to the financial aid paid to assembly parties for 12 months - the maximum allowed. Mr Murphy said he would talk to Sinn Féin next week before making his final decision.

The Northern Secretary said the British government was also proposing suspending allowances paid to Sinn Féin MPs who declined to take their seats. The British government will make time for a debate on that motion in the Commons.

Mr Murphy rejected calls to exclude Sinn Féin from the political process. He said that would not deliver long-term stability. But he said Sinn Féin must commit to non-violence.

Penalties were inevitable after an IMC report on the record bank robbery claimed senior Sinn Féin representatives are also top-ranking IRA members.

Unionists insisted any fine would be dwarfed by the scale of the December 20 raid on the Northern Bank’s Belfast HQ.

But Mr Murphy resisted their demands for Sinn Féin to be frozen out of any new power-sharing government, stressing it would throw attempts to form a cross-community administration further into disarray.

But in a strong attack on alleged republican criminality, he said: “The measures we are proposing are designed to express the disapproval of all those who are committed to purely democratic politics at the actions of the Provisional IRA.

“All in this House recognise the degree of support for Sinn Féin, but we also believe that the actions of the republican movement are letting down everyone in Northern Ireland, including Sinn Féin voters.”

It is the second time the British government has imposed financial punishments on the party.

Its share of the block grant for the Assembly was confiscated last year after the commission blamed the IRA for kidnapping maverick republican Bobby Tohill from a Belfast bar.

Sinn Féin was given until next Tuesday to lodge an appeal against Mr Murphy's action.

The punishment will do little to heal relationships between Dublin and London and the republican movement, badly damaged amid allegations of robberies, money-laundering and murder.

The four-member IMC’s report backed up the guilty verdict delivered to the Provisionals from Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy and PSNI Chief Constable Hugh Orde.

Sinn Féin has rejected the commission’s findings, claiming it is not a properly independent body.

Alliance Party leader David Ford criticised the British government for failing to take meaningful action against Republicans in the wake of the IMC report.

Mr Ford said: “The financial measures announced by the Secretary of State are, as he said, merely a sign of disapproval. They are insignificant in real terms.”

He said the British government should move the North's political process forward without Sinn Féin.

He said he was not talking about exclusion but about moving on and Sinn Féin joining in when they were prepared to make the moves necessary.

“Over two years ago, the Prime Minister called for acts of completion from republicans. Now the government seems to be saying that ministers are not prepared to move forward with democrats until republicans are prepared to move.

“Alliance is quite clear. Sinn Féin is entitled to rejoin the political process when republicans live up to the same standards as the rest of us. Until then, they should not have a veto over progress.”