Peace process - North pays for Paisley’s inflexibility

The ultimate Christmas gift that the people of the North could ever have imagined, a final end to IRA paramilitarism and the reality of peace, was yesterday snatched from them by the bitter intransigence of Ian Paisley and his Democratic Unionist Party.

The IRA had given the Irish and British Governments a commitment to undertake complete decommissioning before Christmas, to be witnessed by one Catholic and one Protestant clergyman, as well as General John de Chastelain of the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning.

A statement from that body confirmed that by two acts of decommissioning, the entire stockpile of IRA weapons would have been destroyed this month.