Paisley accuses Hain on deceiving public on IMC report

Ian Paisley has accused Northern Secretary Peter Hain of deceit today over his claims on how far the IRA had gone to end all its activities.

Speaking after an hour-long meeting with members of the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) which last week produced a report on the IRA, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader said he’d been amazed at what they had to say.

The DUP made clear that while good work had been done there was still more to do.

Mr Paisley said: “We were quite amazed at their forthrightness with us as we cross-examined them on their report.

“It is quite clear their interpretation of their report and their comments are nothing like what the Secretary of State has been selling to the people.

“In fact he has been selling to the people deceit as far as the report was concerned.”

He said the IMC told him “the IRA are not near perfection with regards to doing away with criminal activities”.

He said the Commission told him they had never said that the IRA had gone away.

He added: “The Commission told us they never made any claims that the whole thing was over – yet that is what is being said by the Secretary of State.

“It is quite clear that they (the British government) are trying to put words into the mouths of the IMC.”

The Northern Ireland Office rejected Mr Paisley’s claim that Mr Hain was being deceitful in his interpretation of the IMC report.

“There is no question of trying to deceive anyone,” said a spokesman. “The first thing that the Secretary of State said publicly about the IMC report was to urge everybody to read it for themselves.”

In other news, Mr Paisley stressed his earlier groundbreaking meeting with Catholic Primate Archbishop Brady did not have any religious content.

“It was not an ecumenical meeting of any kind and that was made clear at the beginning of the meeting.”

Speaking as he left the meeting with the IMC, Mr Paisley refused to answer any questions about either discussions with the IMC or the Archbishop.