FORMER ARDOYNE parish priest Fr Aidan Troy has suggested an intermediary be found to hold talks with dissident factions with a view to prevent further killings.
Speaking to The Irish Timesfrom Paris where he is now based, Fr Troy said he condemned the three republican murders.
“Nothing in any sense could ever justify this,” said the priest who came to prominence during the Holy Cross School dispute.
“But at this distance it struck me that we could be getting back into the same language as we had over the last 35 or 40 years of just saying how awful it is,” he added “I was raising the possibility that somebody has to get to these people because they are so dangerous. It has to be seen that that isn’t giving them any form of legitimacy – the course of law has to go ahead.”
Fr Troy stressed he was not suggesting himself as a suitable intermediary, adding that dissident groups would possibly reject him on the grounds that he was utterly opposed to them when he was in Ardoyne.
The British government has rejected any idea of engagement with armed dissident groups.
Security minister Paul Goggins said yesterday: “There is a political process in Northern Ireland and those who believe in democracy have joined it.
“Dissident republicans have singularly failed to join it; they are trying to undermine it. In fact, it’s the very success of it which they are seeking to undermine and attack.”
Responding to this, Fr Troy said: “I’m not going to take on Paul Goggins. If that’s the view of a British minister then so be it. I just hope he’s right.”
However, he stood by his proposal to find someone who could “make an engagement” with dissidents while being sensitive to the families of those bereaved by the three murders.