Sinn Féin statement - Criminality still needs to be addressed

EVERYBODY should warmly welcome the statement issued by Gerry Adams yesterday in which he effectively called on members of the IRA to have the courage to disband.

He did not advocate that they should abandon their goal of a unified Irish Republic, but that they should exert their energies into achieving that goal by the democratic political process.

Mr Adams noted it had been 11 years since the IRA agreed to a ceasefire in response to a call from the Sinn Féin leadership, but he was selective in his memory when he suggested the ceasefire had endured since then, thereby ignoring the Canary Wharf outrage.