IRA decommissioning - IMC verdict central to next step

EVEN if the IRA to take the advice of Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny and announce a unilateral decommissioning of its arms, it is a moot point whether it would improve Sinn Féin’s currency with both governments and the other Northern Ireland parties.

In an RTÉ radio interview, he contended that such a move by the IRA would show both were serious about following the path of democratic politics and would be a gesture of credibility.

The problem is they already made such an announcement well before the Northern Bank episode. The question of decommissioning had been addressed until the intervention of Ian Paisley’s insistence on published photographic evidence.