Business and trade union organisations have urged the IRA and loyalist paramilitaries to demonstrate they are working effectively with Gen John de Chastelain's decommissioning body.
Northern Ireland will be left in an "uneasy present" if those with arms implicitly continue to reserve the right to "substitute violence for politics", the Group of 7 said in a statement yesterday.
Group of 7 consists of organisations such as the Confederation of British Industry in Northern Ireland, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, the Institute of Directors and the North's Chamber of Commerce. The organisation does not expressly call for IRA decommissioning, or a commitment to disarm, although that is implicit in its statement.
The statement said: "The wide range of business, trade union and economic interests represented by the Group of 7 has been impressed and delighted with the progress made in recent weeks to get devolved institutions up and running and at grips with economic and social issues which brook no delay. So it is difficult to believe that we may be only a few days away from the collapse of the model for the future which was painfully hammered out in the Good Friday agreement and solidly endorsed throughout the island of Ireland.
"Like many others reading carefully all the statements issued at the conclusion of the Mitchell review, we had every reason to believe that the issue of how to get the agreement fully implemented in all its aspects had finally been resolved. It is hard to see what other purpose the weeks of effort devoted on all sides to this review could have had.
"The past eight weeks have shown that the political institutions created by the agreement can not merely work but work effectively. Ministers from all the parties represented on the Executive have without exception shown their paces and demonstrated their ability to provide leadership. The Assembly committees have set to work energetically.
"All concerned in this exciting new venture deserve the support of the whole community in affording them the opportunity to fulfil the promise of their initial weeks in office. There needs to be matching evidence that the institution set up to deal with decommissioning is working equally effectively.
"We ask those who can enable Gen de Chastelain to provide that evidence to do so urgently. That would transform the situation. Each side is having to abandon attitudes and symbolism which the other finds repugnant. The process is inevitably charged with emotion and is painful for all. "There are few in our society who are not torn between the familiar past and the unknown future. The safeguard is that we all now have the opportunity, in partnership, to build the future together."
It continued: "We are concerned that the issue has become caught up in the currents of adversarial politics. However, if there is no resolution found, the losers will be those who were the intended beneficiaries of the peace process - the families throughout our society who, regardless of their political loyalties, felt that the Good Friday agreement signalled a new beginning.
"They have a right to know why, nearly two years after the agreement, they still cannot have a firm assurance that it will be implemented in its entirety."
