DUP given assurances over end of IRA, says Robinson

Northern Ireland’s First Minister Peter Robinson says he has received assurances from republicans that the IRA is no longer active.

The Democratic Unionist leader said he has been told privately that the paramilitary is permanently out of business.

Mr Robinson this week helped broker a deal on devolving policing and justice powers from Westminster, ending a stand-off with Sinn Féin that has blocked Stormont cabinet meetings since June.

But the DUP leader insisted that confidence in the Executive would be further boosted if the assurances he received on the IRA were given in public.

“Right at the heart of building confidence within the community will be people’s perception of those who are in the assembly,” Mr Robinson said.

“It’s important that those who are in the leadership of the republican movement make it very clear publicly, as they have done to us privately, that the IRA is out of business for good and is not going to return.”

The DUP leader told BBC Radio: “People have to be convinced and it’s not just somebody saying it, all the actions have to be there as well.”

Traditional Unionist MEP Jim Allister has accused his former colleagues in the DUP of dropping its pledge that policing and justice would not be devolved while the IRA army council is still functioning.

Mr Allister said: “The sad truth is that the DUP has got so entangled in the web of Belfast Agreement devolution that it will say anything and do anything just to cling to power".

“If that requires rolling over on Sinn Fein’s demands on policing and justice and pretending the wicked army council is gone, then so be it.”

PA