Paramilitary report of serious concern, says Enda Kenny

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has said the report into paramilitaries in Northern Ireland clearly raised matters of very serious concern.

He told the Dáil yesterday there were issues about the existence of illegal organisations and command structures, about access to weaponry and widespread criminality.

“Now these things have no place, and can have no place, in our democracy,’’ he said. “They never did and the future of the peace process depends on they being removed from the life of this island once and for all.’’

He said the Irish and British governments would examine the assessment very closely.

He said he acknowledged “we have come a long way’’ in the past 15 to 20 years along the road of peaceful resolution of differences. “Everybody can understand that,’’ he added. “We need to complete that process.’’

Mr Kenny said statements to the effect that the IRA had gone away or left the State were simply not credible. “There may have been a time when living with constructive ambiguity helped the peace process, but that time has now passed,’’ he said. “Paramilitarism in all its vestiges must be removed.’’

IRA ceasefire

He noted he had addressed those issues in a recent speech in Cambridge. “I repeat in the House today that after 21 years of the IRA ceasefire, and 10 years after decommissioning and the IRA announcement, it is past the time when it should carry any capacity for threat,’’ he added.

The Taoiseach was replying to Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin who said a well resourced British-Irish joint agency should be set up to focus on organised crime by paramilitary groups. He also asked Mr Kenny to work with the British government to re-establish the International Monitoring Committee, given the report's conclusions that the PSNI did not have the same level of intelligence it once had. The report had concluded that all the main paramilitary groups remained in existence, including the UVF, UDA, Red Hand Commando and the Provisional IRA, he said.

It had concluded that members of these paramilitary groups continued to engage in violent activity, directed by local leadership and conducted without sanction. Violence and intimidation were used to exercise control at community level.

Criminal activities

Mr Kenny said there was an extensive degree of co-operation between An

Garda Síochána

and the PSNI regarding smuggling and criminal cross-border activities.

Two cross-border joint task forces involved the PSNI and the Garda. Mr Kenny said he was not opposed to Mr Martin’s suggestion of a British-Irish agency but they should wait for the publication later of the report by the Garda on the issue.

He said what they needed to say very clearly was that “the rule of law has to apply and what has happened, as Deputy Martin well knows, is that the legacy of the Provisional IRA has poisoned society in many cases along the Border’’.

Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams said society in the North had been on a journey from conflict to peace and it was the responsibility of all political leaders to help to complete that journey. "It is clearly not a task for a hurler on the ditch like the leader of Fianna Fáil,'' he added.