No basis to suggest IRA plans return to violence Flanagan

The RUC Chief Constable has said he has no intelligence the IRA is planning to return to violence in two weeks.

Speaking to reporters in Dublin after addressing a prize-giving ceremony at the King's Hospital school in Palmerstown, Sir Ronnie Flanagan said there was "no intelligence basis" for suggesting this. "There is, of course, the dissident threat which remains and we will constantly work with our colleagues in the Garda Siochana," he said, to deal with that threat.

Sir Ronnie said the politicians of all parties in the North had made tremendous strides. Everyone hoped "they would continue to take those strides for the good of all the people in the North and thereby for the good of all the people on the island."

For this to happen they had to move away from a "blame culture" of which he had been as guilty as anybody. They had to move to a "position of accepting responsibility".

"If we do that, then as the new millennium dawns, Northern Ireland can see at last true peace, and prosperity and security for all its citizens."

He was confident "that we will never go back to the dark days we had to endure in the past. That does not mean there will not be problems. Of course there will be but I am confident we will all overcome them." He said: "I think the politicians have striven manfully in trying to reach agreement, in trying to respect each other's positions, in trying to acknowledge each other's difficulties, and I have every confidence they will continue to do that.

"It is certainly not for me to suggest what exactly they should do. That is their job and they are very well qualified to do that. I hope there will be political developments."

He added: "Policing doesn't operate in a vacuum. Continuing political developments are bound to have a positive impact on policing and security in the North."

Asked if he believed the IRA was planning to decommission, he said decommissioning was in the political arena, and had to be left there. "It is my job to determine where arms are being unlawfully held. Our colleagues in the Garda Siochana have been tremendously successful in that regard recently, but decommissioning is a matter to be left firmly in the political area."

He said there was a responsibility to facilitate a society where individuals or groups were free to live as they chose but in exercising that freedom they did not adversely impinge on the freedom of others.

All communities had differing demands, needs and expectations of their policing service. "As their public servants, it behoves us to listen to their differing demands, to discern their different needs, and working in partnership with them all, to do our very best to address those differing expectations."

He said they wanted to create a workforce where "young men and women of any political persuasion or religious belief don't feel any need to submerge those beliefs or that persuasion in order to feel comfortable or be successful in pursuing a police career".

After the ceremonies, at which he was presented with a Dublin crystal bowl, Sir Ronnie stood with the assembly to sing the Irish national anthem, Amhran na bhFiann.