SAOIRSE32

News Letter
8 May 2008

THE debate over the future of the IRA Army Council has taken a strange twist after Martin McGuinness claimed it may no longer exist.

In an interview to mark the impending first anniversary of power-sharing with the DUP [on May 8], the News Letter suggested to the Deputy First Minister that there could be no transfer of policing and justice powers to Stormont until the IRA leadership is formally disbanded.

Devolution promise

Mr McGuinness claimed the DUP had promised the powers would be devolved by this month – a suggestion the DUP totally rejected.

And of the IRA, he responded: “I do not know if it (the Army Council] does exist or not.”

When pressed that this was a statement which many – unionists in particular – would find “risible”, the Sinn Fein negotiator and former IRA commander said: “How is it risible?”

He explained that over the last year “all of my focus and all of my meetings have been on the work of government” and “I have not had any cause whatsoever to be in touch with the IRA over the course of the recent while”.

Out of equation

Therefore, he claimed to be unaware if there still was an Army Council –and therefore an IRA.

“The IRA has left the stage. They are totally and absolutely out of the equation. Any attempt to drag them back onto the stage is a big mistake,” said Mr McGuinness of unionists linking it to policing and justice.

Condemnation

However, the shadow of the IRA continues to linger over politics and the country when events such as the murder of Paul Quinn, in south Armagh, occur.

The Deputy First Minister said he and his party condemned the killers of Mr Quinn and called for people to help put the “criminals” responsible behind bars.

He claimed the IRA was not a threat and having decommissioned, stood down members and ended violence, asked, why would it then countenance or condone the activities of whoever was responsible for the murder of Paul Quinn?

“It doesn’t make sense. It defies logic,” he said.

Mr McGuinness claimed that the DUP had promised him, personally, that it was committed to transferring the powers in line with the date, envisaged by the St Andrews Agreement, of May this year.

More specifically, he recalled “a conversation that I had with Ian Paisley Jnr, Peter Robinson and Nigel Dodds in this very building (Stormont Castle] on the Saturday before the March 26 (2007 – the day Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams announced a devolution deal], when I put to them that it was very, very important that people stood by the commitments that were made in the St Andrews Agreement and was told by the DUP that they would do that.

“Obviously, that specified that powers should be transferred by May of this year.

“Everybody left St Andrews on the basis that the date for the transfer of policing and justice powers was May this year.”

A DUP spokesman responded: “At no time during the meeting (March 24, 2007] did any DUP representative give a commitment to devolve policing and justice powers by May 2008.

“At that meeting it was articulated that the DUP would stand by any commitment made at St Andrews. At no time during or after St Andrews did the DUP make a commitment to devolve policing and justice powers within the Government timetable.

“The St Andrews Agreement and the May 2008 date are products of British and Irish governments. At no time has the DUP ever signed up to the St Andrews Agreement or the May 2008 date.

“This position was openly expressed by Mr Paisley during the Press conference following St Andrews.

“Whilst the DUP favours the devolution of policing and justice powers, we have stated in our manifesto and in other public comments that the confidence does not exist to support any move.

“We will only contemplate any move when all the conditions are right.”

Meanwhile, Mr McGuinness said he was confident he and Peter Robinson can work well in OFMDFM.

He noted: “People talk to me about the vexed issues and the big problems that have to be addressed. None of them compare with the challenge that was before us to get these institutions up in the first place.”

However, he urged the DUP not to fall into the trap of taking decisions while looking over its shoulder at Jim Allister, as David Trimble had done with the DUP.