Paramilitary criminality - Disarmament imperative to sustain peace

No matter how much Sinn Féin may denigrate the report of the International Monitoring Commission (IMC), both the Irish and British governments believe its import.

This is that the IRA remains involved in criminality and is still recruiting and training new members.

While that situation remains, Sinn Féin will remain persona non grata despite party president Gerry Adams’s recent appeal to the IRA to abandon the armed struggle for real democracy.

That has not happened, and although the IMC exonerated it from authorising the murder of Robert McCartney, it did charge the organisation with obstructing the police investigation and of intimidating witnesses.

The sooner the IRA, and the loyalist paramilitary groups which were also cited, forsake violence and criminality, the better will it be to get the Good Friday Agreement back on track. Sinn Féin is committed to that and, in the words of former US President Bill Clinton, there is no viable alternative to it.