Ahern hails IRA statement as historic

“TONIGHT will be the first night since 1969 that we don’t go to our beds feeling that some threat lies over our heads,” Taoiseach Bertie Ahern told reporters yesterday.

Mr Ahern was speaking half-an-hour after the IRA’s armed struggle ceased at 4pm yesterday, following the long-awaited statement that the republican organisation would follow a democratic path, ending more than 30 years of violence.

On the day in which he declared “the war is over”, an upbeat Taoiseach said he believed the country could look to “a future of peace and prosperity based on mutual trust and reconciliation and a final end to violence”.

Mr Ahern said he felt privileged to have seen through what he regarded as “the most important work” of generations of Irish political leaders.

Also welcoming the IRA’s landmark statement, President Mary McAleese said she hoped it would “help to secure the long-term, peaceful, respectful co-existence of this and all future generations of people on this island, from every tradition and perspective”.

“I hope that, in the interest of generations to come, this opportunity will now be well and wisely used,” she said.

In a joint statement yesterday, the British and Irish Governments welcomed the IRA’s move saying the end of the movement as a paramilitary organisation had been the aim of both governments since the 1994 ceasefire.

But the statement was also cautious to await deeds to back up the IRA’s words.

“Both Governments are hopeful that the practical elements of this statement will be implemented in the terms set out. If the terms of the IRA’s words are borne out by actions, it will be a momentous and historic development.”

The governments also warned that trust between all sides had been damaged and would take time to rebuild.

The Independent Monitoring Commission, which was due to issue its next report in October, has been asked to issue a further report on the IRA’s final acts of decommissioning in January.

“These reports will help the governments to assess whether all the paramilitary and criminal activity on the part of the IRA has come to a decisive end and whether decommissioning has been fully completed,” the statement said.

If that is the case, both governments indicated that all parties should then be able to enter talks on restoring the Northern institutions “at the earliest practicable date”.

But the governments warned that all parties and community leaders had to ensure loyalist paramilitary and criminal activity end and stressed that support for policing structures had to be accepted by all sides.

Tánaiste Mary Harney said the IRA statement was a knock on the door of democracy and like many of her colleagues her thoughts were with the more than 3,000 victims of the Troubles and their families.

“Their loss can never be compensated but my hope is these families will take some small comfort from today’s commitment by the IRA to finally cease their military campaign and embrace democratic politics,” she said.