UDA has had long enough to disarm

IT is more than nine years since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, which stated there should be “total disarmament of all paramilitary organisations” and parties should “confirm their intention to continue to work constructively and in good faith with the Independent Monitoring Commission”.

It is three years since Paul Murphy MP, then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, stated about the UDA, that “the Government has always made clear it would judge paramilitary organisations by their deeds, not just their words alone”.

Why, then, does Shaun Woodward this week welcome the loyalist group’s belated decision to engage with John de Chastelain’s organisation? The UDA should have meaningfully engaged with the IMC in 1998