Taoiseach and Blair back IRA arms report

THE Irish and British Governments yesterday powerfully backed the international decommissioning body’s determination that the IRA has fully destroyed its vast arsenal of weapons, describing it as a landmark shift of deep historical significance.

In an extraordinary day, described by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern as momentous, the retired Canadian general who heads the decommissioning body (IICD) reported confidently that the IRA had fully decommissioned its weapons.

The report was strongly corroborated by two independent church witnesses, Fr Alex Reid and Methodist minister Rev Harold Good. They said the evidence was so incontrovertible that it demonstrated, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the arms of the IRA had been decommissioned.