Peace process in crisis - IRA’s ‘pilot light’ was left running

FORMER Justice Minister Michael McDowell may have taken many ordinary Irish citizens by surprise by revealing that the total abolition of the IRA was never part of the Northern Ireland peace process.

The opinion of both British and Irish governments ten years ago was that it was preferable for the IRA to remain as an inert organisation than to allow dissident republicans to assert itself as the Provos’ legitimate heir.

In that, they were aided by the then DUP leader Ian Paisley who said he would have no trouble if the IRA continued to exist as a harmless ‘old boys’ club. But does it?

According to Detective Supt Kevin Geddes of the PSNI, a major line of inquiry into the murder of Kevin McGuigan is that members of the Provisional IRA were involved.

However, the force’s Chief Constable George Hamilton clarified the position by saying that “in the organisational sense the Provisional IRA does not exist for paramilitary purposes”. That accords with the view of Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams who accuses political opponents North and South of trying to damage his party electorally.

If the IRA retains its military structure that can only mean that the strategy was a failure and by leaving the IRA’s ‘pilot light’ running we now have the prospect of a regrouped paramilitary force as well as the continuing existence of separate dissident republican organisations.