IRA 'moving in right direction': Hain

The latest assessment of IRA activity shows the terrorist organisation is moving in the right direction, Peter Hain claimed today.

Following the publication of the Independent Monitoring Commission’s latest report on paramilitary activity, the Northern Ireland Secretary urged people to read all its findings before rushing to judgment.

“This is a positive report,” he insisted.

“It shows that the IRA is moving in the right direction and is closing down - no murders, no recruitment and no bank robberies.

“There is enough progress in this report to make the process of talking meaningful – not an Executive up and running tomorrow, but the beginning of a process of genuine and purposeful engagement.

“For the good of the people of Northern Ireland we need to strive to get to where we want to go and not get mired in where we’ve been.”

Mr Hain was speaking as he met Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern in London.

Both governments will chair talks next week aimed at reviving devolution in the North.

But with the North’s largest party, the Rev Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionists, ruling out power-sharing with Sinn Féin for the foreseeable future, officials in London and Dublin are having to temper their original hope that the IMC report would be the springboard for reviving the Assembly.

Unionists were expected to seize upon claims in today’s report that IRA members are still involved in criminality, intelligence gathering and assaults, and may have retained weapons, as proof that republicans are not fit to serve in government.

But Mr Hain urged them to remember that in the first two IMC reports there were no signs that the Provisional IRA would wind down.

He contrasted this with the latest report which reported a change in direction for the IRA.

The Northern Ireland Secretary also said it was hugely significant that the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning saw no reason to change their assessment last September regarding IRA decommissioning after fresh claims from security sources that some weapons had been held back by the organisation.

Mr Hain, however, acknowledged the picture painted in the report was not perfect.

“It takes more than six months for the closing down of such a complex organisation,” the minister said. “Even so, there is understandable and justified concern about criminality.

“We have always said that there are complex assessments to be made to distinguish between the criminal activities of individual PIRA members for their own gain and criminality carried out by PIRA members which is authorised by the organisation.

“I’m grateful for the support of the Irish government in this.”