Cowen: 'Actions speak louder than words'
Minister for Finance Brian Cowen has said that today’s IRA statement must mean an end to the organisation’s 35-year campaign of violence.
Brian Cowen said: “We have taken on board a clear statement of what they have to say. We now want to see the consequences of that in terms of going forward.”
He said implementation of the Good Friday Agreement would ensure a bright and peaceful future for people north and south.
“The people deserve it. They want it. It’s a basic principle of republicanism in the truest sense that the voice of the people should be listened to.”
Former Taoiseach Albert Reynolds said the move by the IRA was a sensible step into democracy.
He said he had been confident the IRA would make the declaration ever since the first ceasefire was called in August 1994.
“I knew and believed and said it so many times since that we had changed direction in relation to the republican movement and that in time it would be seen as such. This is an historic day,” Mr Reynolds said.
“It’s back to politics and back to democracy and no more militarism and no more criminality.”
Mr Reynolds said Sinn Féin had been working for years to bring an end to the armed struggle and pursue their goals purely democratically.
“They have been developing the political situation for quite some time and they had done exceptionally well… they were not going to get away with continuing on the military role and keeping politics up on the same situation,” he said.
“It just wouldn’t work, people wouldn’t buy in to it. I believe that they took what was a sensible decision at the end of the day to go forward in the only way that sustained support would be there for the republican movement and the nationalist movement.”
Reg Empey, leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, said many people would be reserving judgment until the IRA’s words were translated into actions.
“I can’t take any statement from the republican movement at face value because we have had that many of them in the past,” he said.
“After having had so many false starts in the past, naturally people are going to say actions speak louder than words. So let us see how this plays out. Let us see what happens to the weapons, let us see what happens on the ground.”
He predicted it would be “some time” before a power-sharing Executive was resumed.
He told BBC Radio 4’s World At One programme: “People are so sceptical, having been burnt so many times before. This is not simply whingeing or being difficult about it. It is being simply factual that we have had so many statements before that haven’t been kept.”
He warned that the issue of criminality must also be addressed.
Mr Empey continued: “In many respects you could look at this statement and say: 'Does this actually acknowledge the fact that the armed struggle has failed and all the sacrifice and torture that has happened was really pointless?' You could make that point.”
He ended: “Looking at what happened last night with the decision of the (British) government to release (Shankill bomber) Sean Kelly from prison and so on, this sort of thing poisons the atmosphere, so you’ll forgive people here if we are going to reserve our positions, wait and see what happens.”
Ulster Unionist Party MLA Dermot Nesbitt welcomed the clarity of the IRA’s statement but said it must be matched by decisive action on the ground.
“The words are now clear. But what remains to be seen is the action and how it is delivered on the ground,” he said.
“We from the unionist community have been bitten many times by fine words from the republican movement.”
Mr Nesbitt, who previously served in government in the North with Sinn Féin, refused to put a timeframe on political movement after today.
“There is no timeframe. We look for the words to be committed into action. It is the actions that will convince the whole community that this war is over.
“The words we have today have been presented in a more clear and more upfront manner. I’m encouraged by the words.”
