The vice-chairwoman of the 32-County Sovereign Movement, Ms Bernadette Sands-McKevitt, said yesterday her group condemned the Omagh bombing.
However, asked by Joe Duffy on RTE's Liveline if she would call on groupings such as the `Real IRA' to disband, she replied: "I don't think that's for me to do because I don't think people are listening in that sense. It's up to them to do."
What did she think they should do? "I'm firmly convinced that people should, and I mean all right across the spectrum, should push at international level and get it resolved once and for all," she said. Through politics, through dialogue? asked Joe Duffy. "Yes, of course, through peaceful means," she said.
She was asked if she would call on everyone to give up violence in the name of Ireland or whatever name was used.
Ms Sands-McKevitt said when she went to the United Nations that was her sole purpose. "I want to see, and I firmly believe this, I want to see an end completely, I don't want to see it passed on to other generations." Joe Duffy asked: "So no group can justify any violence against anybody, either an economic target or a physical target?"
Ms Sands-McKevitt replied: "You're trying to tie me up there, I'm not exactly sure where you're coming from there on that. What I'm trying to say is that I believe, and I firmly believe, that this submission that's been put in the international arena is the one and only thing that is actually addressing the problem."
Asked if she would not clearly say to people that she did not believe any violence was justifiable, Ms Sands-McKevitt replied: "I don't agree with violence such as we've witnessed, I don't agree with that at all. I have to say, I do think, I would prefer we see this by peaceful means that, I think, is the best way I can put this because it's the only way forward and as a committee that's what we're trying to do.
"I'm trying to be realistic, I'm not trying to evade the question. What I'm saying to you is, there are always, and have always been, people who have been engaged in violence from whatever quarter, be it from Irish republicanism, be it from the British or whatever, and I said this before, if we don't address the problem, how are we going to solve it."
Asked again whether violence can be justified, she replied: "Well, I don't think, you know, you're trying to tie me up again."
Joe Duffy: "I'm not, it's a very simple question." "Well, I look at the Gulf War and I look at all these other various things and it's, I mean, it's a very sweeping kind of a statement, you know. "I am trying through the United Nations to get us to address it because the Agreement fell short of addressing the problem."
Asked what she would say to people who still had violence in their minds, she said: "I would ask them to support us on this peaceful route."
On the statement from the `Real IRA' saying it had suspended operations, she commented: "Well I welcome that and I think all in our committee would welcome that to. Equally we welcomed the Provisional IRA ceasefire."
Asked if she intended to stay working and living her life with the family, she said she had no reason to go anywhere. "I'm remaining here and I will continue to remain here and I will do whatever I have to in order to clear my name."
Joe Duffy said callers had asked that before she finished, would she reiterate her condemnation.
"I have already done it. You see, this is what I'm saying . . . Why is it that our word is not being taken, I cannot understand it? What is it that we have to do, what is it we have to say? Why is this not being accepted? Even as I've stated with Cllr Mackey, we can say no more than what we've said, and that's as much as I can say."
Did she hope the people that perpetrated the crime would be brought to justice? "Well I'm sure, they will, I'm sure they will," she replied.