If the picture of the IRA painted yesterday by the monitoring commission holds, it will be hard for the DUP to refuse to do business with Sinn Féin, suggests Gerry Moriarty, Northern Editor
The IRA as a leadership-run paramilitary and criminal organisation has gone away, you know - this was the central thrust of the 10th report of the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) published yesterday.
Persuading all individual IRA members to comply with the instructions of P O'Neill may be slightly more problematic, but the main message in the report was that provisional republicans have well and truly abandoned the battlefield.
If the situation remains the same or has improved by October - when the next critical IMC report on paramilitary activity comes out - then there is a reasonable possibility that there could be agreement on a DUP/Sinn Féin-led Stormont administration by November 24th, the deadline for a deal set by the British and Irish governments.
A maxim of this long-running peace process is that it is for Bertie Ahern to deliver the IRA through Gerry Adams and for Tony Blair to deliver the DUP through Ian Paisley. With the IRA decommissioning and declaring an end to its "armed campaign" last year and now with this "most significant" IMC paper to date, it is clear the Taoiseach is fulfilling his part of the contract. But Tony Blair's attempt to bring the highly unpredictable DUP leader aboard the power-sharing train is proving a tricky business.
There are still many pundits who insist the Doc will "never, never, never" treat with Sinn Féin, regardless of how much the IRA eschews violence and criminality. But senior British government people reply that no, this is not the case: that Dr Paisley is deliverable, that DUP MPs travelling to Killarney and Peter Robinson talking about a settlement that meets the demands of "Planter and Gael" isn't just for show.
But the DUP still requires considerable coaxing. And that was why Mr Blair - who, with John Prescott and some of his other under-achieving cabinet colleagues, must have many pressing matters to concern him - took considerable time out yesterday to provide interviews to the BBC, UTV and RTÉ to stress the importance of this IMC document.
And despite the mostly justified positive British-Irish governmental spin there are still some unanswered questions in the report. It is a given that if the murder of Denis Donaldson, which the IMC has yet to examine as it occurred outside the time-frame covered by this latest report, is in any way linked to the IRA leadership then it is curtains for a deal. The line from Dublin and London remains that there "is no evidence to link the IRA leadership to the murder".
And while the IMC says the leadership is trying to wean its more recalcitrant members away from criminality it also refers to the IRA looking "to the long-term exploitation of discreetly laundered assets which were previously gained illegally". Asked were these assets being used to support Sinn Féin, IMC chairman Lord Alderdice would say only: "We are talking about the republican movement . . . we are monitoring that . . . we are not in a position to say anything further about that."
Dr Paisley in his response yesterday laid some stress on this element of the report. If that is still a loose end, so to speak, in October will he be satisfied to leave this issue to the Garda, PSNI, the Criminal Assets Bureau and the Assets Recovery Agency in the North? Which brings us to an applicable question that Progressive Unionist Party leader David Ervine likes to put to the DUP, which roughly goes: "Does Ian Paisley want every Provo shoplifter to be put away before he will do business with Sinn Féin?" Here, it should be noted, he is not referring to that old Northern joke of shoplifter as a euphemism for bomber, as in someone who literally "lifts" shops, but to petty crime.
While the focus on the IRA may be understandable, because that's where the North's political future will be determined, here is a line in the report which should not be overlooked, especially by unionists: "None of the republican incidents are attributable to PIRA as an organisation. Loyalists caused 95 per cent of the casualties of shootings and 76 per cent of the casualties of assaults over that period."
Unionists often say they have no influence over loyalists. Yet John Hume and the SDLP with success took it upon themselves to persuade Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness to end the IRA "war". The report therefore raises the question: why won't Ian Paisley do the same with the loyalists?
The distinction between what some individual IRA members do and what the IRA leadership says they should do (or not do) is fairly well drawn in this IMC report. If that situation holds in October then Dr Paisley will be hard-pressed to find reasons for not going into an Executive with Sinn Féin, although find them he will if he is so minded.
The fact is the real push to create a power-sharing government in Northern Ireland 3½ years after the last one collapsed began in earnest yesterday with the publication of the IMC's report. "This is the foundation stone for a deal," was how one senior London figure described the document yesterday.
The IRA has a responsibility to make this opportunity work, but so has the DUP, the governments agree. If Dr Paisley plays for too much then the danger is that ever so slowly more IRA members will peel away to the dissidents and younger people who never really knew the Troubles will be sold the line that unionists don't want a Fenian about the place. The DUP has gained political power but there is a historic responsibility that they mustn't lose sight of as well, and in fairness there are many in the party who are alert to the dangers of missing this chance.