Ahern and Blair to seek ways to safeguard NI peace process

Gerry Moriartyand Mark HennessyThe Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, and British Prime Minister Mr Tony Blair will try to establish a strategy…

Gerry Moriartyand Mark HennessyThe Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, and British Prime Minister Mr Tony Blair will try to establish a strategy for safeguarding the peace process when they meet in London tomorrow.

The talks will take place as the issue of possible unilateral IRA decommissioning comes on to the political agenda.

Fine Gael leader Mr Enda Kenny yesterday urged the IRA to unilaterally decommission their weapons to restore republican credibility with the governments and other parties, which has been severely damaged by the £26.5 million Northern Bank raid for which the IRA has been blamed.

Mr Ahern meets the Independent Monitoring Commission at Government Buildings this morning to discuss the robbery. The IMC, which is due to conclude a special report into the robbery this week and publish it next week, is expected to recommend sanctions against Sinn Féin.

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Financial penalties against the party are likely to be recommended. These could include docking Sinn Féin Assembly pay and allowances.

The IMC could also propose that the party's Dáil and Westminster allowances be hit, although the body's main remit relates to the non-sitting Assembly.

While any such proposals will trigger fierce resistance and condemnation from republicans, the governments essentially view it as a side issue.

Mr Ahern and Mr Blair in Downing Street tomorrow will concentrate on exploring future options, though ideas are few.

The Garda Commissioner, Mr Noel Conroy, and the Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, Mr Hugh Orde, will brief the two leaders on the latest details on the investigation into the raid.

The onus now rests on Sinn Féin and the IRA to at least create a climate where political progress could be possible, Mr Ahern and Mr Blair believe.

"If republicans recognise that they have gone too far this time then we may be able to do something," said a senior source about tomorrow's meeting. "But if they don't then the governments will have to start thinking about what else they can do."

Speculation carried in the Sunday Independent that the IRA is about to resume acts of terrorism have been dismissed by informed Government sources.

"Absolute rubbish," said one.

However, the sources point out that long-standing tensions remain within the organisation about the peace process.

Speaking on RTÉ's This Week, Mr Kenny said Sinn Féin and the IRA could show that they are "serious about following the path of democratic politics" by decommissioning unilaterally: "Call in General de Chastelain, and any other reporter or person they wish to verify that, and have that out of the way."

He added: "If they made the decision to decommission, they could follow that through as a gesture of credibility and demonstration that they are serious about concluding the Good Friday agreement, and move on then to negotiations with both governments later."

The Sinn Féin president, Mr Gerry Adams, meanwhile portrayed Mr Ahern's attack on Sinn Féin and the IRA in the Dáil last week, and his assertion that republicans could turn on and off "punishment" attacks, as a tactic to divert attention from the jailing of former government minister Mr Ray Burke.

Mr Adams said Mr Ahern well knew Sinn Féin's opposition to these attacks.

"What you saw for electoral reasons, for party political reasons, on that particular day, [ was] to get them past the embarrassment caused by the imprisonment of a cabinet minister, the reminder of all of the corruption of the brown envelope culture that permeated establishment politics for so long. And Bertie played a blinder," Mr Adams told BBC Radio Ulster's Inside Politics programme.

The Progressive Unionist Party's Mr David Ervine said punishment beatings of suspected criminals and anti-social elements are demanded by working classes in Northern Ireland.

"If Sinn Féin and the IRA don't deliver summary justice then they will go somewhere else for it," he told RTÉ's Week in Politics programme.

Speaking on the same programme, the Minister for Education and Science, Ms Hanafin, said Sinn Féin and the IRA had robbed the Northern Bank "but also robbed the peace process" and had behaved in "a most duplicitous manner".