IRA admission - Sinn Féin must work to build trust

THE IRA’s admission yesterday that it was responsible for killing 14-year-old Kathleen Feeney in Derry in November 1973 is another grim reminder of the destructive nature of the Troubles.

Unlike the murder of Jean McConville, the mother of 10 children, the killing of Kathleen Feeney was unintentional, but she was just as dead, and her family were robbed of their teenage girl. The admission was a belated one, almost 32 years after the murder, which the IRA disingenuously tried to blame on a British soldier.

The murderous affair highlights the need to advance the peace process so that no other family suffers such horror. The IRA is expected to respond in the coming weeks to Gerry Adams’s request for it to stand down and decommission all arms.

Then the issue will be whether this has satisfied demands for an end to paramilitarism and criminality. The IRA will also have to abandon its so-called Community Restorative Justice (CRJ), which amounts to a kind of parallel police force.

Otherwise, critics will inevitably contend that CRJ is just the IRA by another name. The big question initially will be whether the IRA’s statement satisfies the British and Irish governments.

If it does, the next issue will be what influence the two governments can exert on Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to arrange powersharing with Sinn Féin. Even if the IRA agrees to stand down unconditionally and decommission openly, there will still be problems ahead.

The DUP will almost inevitably seek further concessions, demanding that IRA apologise in the proverbial sackcloth and ashes, or it may look for a buffer period of relative decontamination in which the IRA and Sinn Féin will be left to demonstrate their sincerely before a powersharing executive can be formed. The Taoiseach has expressed a desire for an early resolution, because he is afraid of the uncertainty of the forthcoming marching season.

The DUP enjoyed a handsome political dividend within the Unionist community as a result of its intransigence in the run-up to the last Westminster election. The polarisation of the two communities poses serious problems not just across the sectarian divide but also within each community.

Having gained electoral advantage by its hardline approach, the DUP will be reluctant to soften its attitude. The SDLP came out of the recent Westminster election with a stable mandate, with the result that it should be taken more seriously by the Irish and British governments.

But Sinn Féin would seem to have more room for political manoeuvre, because it can look beyond the North to building up its political influence in the Republic. The party clearly wants to develop so that it can achieve a balance of power within the Dáil.

Sinn Féin’s standing in recent public opinion polls would seem to suggest that the party is in a good position to gain further seats, which could afford it a balance of power. Other parties are not likely to trust Sinn Féin however, unless it first demonstrates that it has abandoned criminality and paramilitarism.

It must also recognise the democratic right of the people to be represented in the spirit of true republicanism, not the hitherto fascist brand of perverted republicanism as propagated by Sinn Féin and the IRA.