All sides will need to work together to tackle paramilitary violence

WE thought they had gone away but the latest activity by dissident republicans calling themselves the IRA suggests that either they haven’t or that a new generation of murderers has taken up where the Provos left off.

Two PSNI officers in West Belfast were the target last Thursday night of the gang who used an AK47 assault rifle to shoot at their police car. Their lives were saved by bullet- proof glass.

It has now emerged that a BMW used by the gang to escape had been stolen 11 weeks ago in Co Meath and carried false Cork registration plates.

What is most worrying about the attack is that it demonstrates that not only has this new IRA access to powerful weapons but they have a murderous reach from Cork to Belfast.

This attack makes the recent agreement between the Irish and British governments and Northern Ireland’s power-sharing executive to take a series of initiatives on cross-border crime all the more essential.