Ahern calls for end to 'culture of paramilitarism'

The Taoiseach was heckled by Sinn Féin supporters in Derry today where he gave a speech strongly critical of recent paramilitary activity by the republican movement.

Speaking at the University of Ulster's Magee College, Mr Ahern claimed republican paramilitary activity by the movement was "negating any prospect of achieving inclusive partnership politics" in the North.

A small group of Sinn Féin councillors and other republicans held a protest outside the front entrance of the University and heckled Mr Ahern as he arrived.

They held placards calling on the Taoiseach "to start supporting the peace process and stop standing idly by".

In his speech to an audience - which included Sinn Féin's Mr Martin McGuinness and Mr Mitchel McLaughlin - Mr Ahern said the republican movement "needed to fully understand and accept the imperative of definitively ending, both in words and deeds, the culture of paramilitarism".

He said the Sinn Féin leadership understand this reality and were "working towards achieving that objective of ending paramilitarism".

Mr Ahern said unionism needed to "unequivocally embrace the principle and practice of inclusive partnership politics".

He dismissed the call by unionist parties for a policy of exclusion to be implemented against Sinn Féin, saying such a policy was "unworkable".

"Arrangements which excluded the largest party in one community would scarcely be the best expression of partnership government, would in practice not provide political stability and would not be conducive to achieving closure on paramilitarism," he said.

"It is now almost six years since the Good Friday Agreement was signed. In that time, we have had significant historic events. But we have only periodically been able to see the Agreement working at its best," Mr Ahern said.