Paisley calls for resignation of Secretary Reid

Democratic Unionist Party leader Dr Ian Paisley today called for Northern Ireland Secretary Dr John Reid's resignation over details…

Democratic Unionist Party leader Dr Ian Paisley today called for Northern Ireland Secretary Dr John Reid's resignation over details of alleged IRA infiltration.

Dr Paisley, speaking during a special Assembly debate, accused Dr Reid of a "blatant breach" of security by transferring a government employee caught copying sensitive documents to another department.

He said: "The Secretary of State should forthwith resign because he has allowed these documents to pass when he had information and caught a person red-handed who was printing these documents".

Dr Paisley, who earlier announced the resignation of his two ministers Mr Peter Robinson and Mr Nigel Dodds from the power-sharing Executive, said last Friday's raid on Sinn Féin offices at Stormont had proved republicans were not interested in peace.

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"What happened was what we said would happen, that the IRA would continue to plan their acts of terror and carry out them as they wanted to," he told the Assembly.

"Since the Belfast Agreement was signed, the IRA have been updating its weapons and bomb techniques in Colombia. They have been rearming from both Russia and Florida.

"They have been targeting leading political, judicial, security and loyalist figures using updated intelligence files," Dr Paisley said.