Ahern warns UDP may lose talks role if UFF behind murders

The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, has warned that the Ulster Democratic Party may lose its place at the all-party talks if it is proved the Ulster Freedom Fighters was responsible for recent killings in Northern Ireland.

However, he cautioned that he did not want "to start giving an end result" before the procedure laid down in legislation governing the talks process had been gone through.

As he understood it, he said, the Northern Ireland Minister for Political Affairs, Mr Paul Murphy, was talking to the UDP. "Obviously what they say to him is going to be important. There is a procedure set down in the legislation of what has to be followed: both that these matters are proved and what the two governments have to state. We are going to have to go through to that procedure," Mr Ahern said.

Commenting on the statement by the RUC Chief Constable, Mr Ronnie Flanagan, that the UFF was engaged in terrorist activity, the Taoiseach said there was no question that this was very serious, "and he seems quite emphatic in what he is saying".

"I suppose he is reiterating what people on the ground in Belfast have been telling me since the man was shot back in early Dec ember at the GAA club. The procedures have to be followed, but it is in line with what we have been told for some weeks," Mr Ahern continued.

He also warned that information had got through to him from the North in recent days that people might have been acting outside their organisational structure and not in line with that structure. "I think at least that has to be examined before we all jump to final conclusions," he added.

Mr Ahern indicated he did not accept the IRA's statement that there was a crisis in the peace process. "I don't normally comment on what Oglaigh na hEireann want to say," he added.

The Democratic Left leader, Mr De Rossa, has called on the Government to allow time for a debate on the deteriorating situation in Northern Ireland when the Dail resumes next week.

The sectarian murders, directed primarily against Roman Catholics, the public disappointment expressed by Sinn Fein at the intergovernment documents, and the ominous statement from the IRA last Wednesday had all created a sense of crisis which posed a real threat to the future of the talks process, he said.