The head of the North's Policing Board, Sir Desmond Rea, has resigned from a Belfast-based development company as an indirect result of the Garda inquiries into alleged money-laundering by the IRA, writes Dan Keenan, Northern News Editor
Sir Desmond quit his position as a non-executive director of Ivy Wood Properties following Garda inquiries. He insisted he knew of no wrongdoing by anyone at the company and stressed his move was "precautionary". His resignation, however, indicates just how widespread and damaging is the fallout from last week's raids.
Ivy Wood Properties, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Harcourt Developments, has the development rights to the Titanic Quarter in central Belfast. Mr Phil Flynn resigned his seat on the board at Harcourt last week following the arrests and seizure of cash by gardaí in Cork and Dublin.
Sir Desmond said yesterday: "As soon as I had the first indication that there was any link - however tenuous and speculative - between my position as a non-executive director of Ivy Wood Properties Ltd and the widespread coverage around ongoing policing operations in the Irish Republic, I decided that it would be appropriate for me to stand down from the Ivy Wood Properties Board, which I joined only last September.
"I would like to make it entirely clear that I know of no information whatsoever to link Ivy Wood Properties or the development in Belfast to any wrongdoing. I have submitted my resignation from Ivy Wood Properties Ltd merely as a precautionary measure to provide yet further distance."
He said in his letter of resignation to the chairman of Harcourt Developments: "You will no doubt appreciate that, given my role as Chairman of the Northern Ireland Policing Board, I cannot afford to bring such publicity, however ill-founded, to the door of the Policing Board."
Sir Desmond said he wanted to emphasise he had no shares in either Harcourt Developments or Ivy Wood Properties Ltd and to the best of his knowledge had never met Mr Flynn.
"I know nothing to the detriment of Ivy Wood Properties Limited, Harcourt Development, or Mr Flynn, and would wish the company well in the development of the Titanic Quarter which is a site critical to the economic and social development of the city of Belfast."
The company was not available for comment last night.
In the House of Commons yesterday, the Northern Secretary, Mr Paul Murphy, said he plans to extend by 12 months the suspension of Sinn Féin's £120,000 Stormont Assembly grant, which was imposed after an earlier Independent Monitoring Commission report.
The British government is expected to table a motion in parliament which would enable it to target Westminster benefits, worth about £500,000, accruing to Sinn Féin's four abstentionist MPs. Mr Murphy told MPs he has given Sinn Féin until next Tuesday to reply before the new sanction is levied.
The DUP leader, the Rev Ian Paisley, said he could envisage sitting in government with Sinn Féin, but the IRA would have to cease all its activities and visibly prove it had disposed of its weapons. Asked on Channel 4 News if anything could be done to save the Assembly, which has been suspended since October 2002, Dr Paisley said he believed devolution could be restored, subject to those conditions.
The Sinn Féin leader in the Dáil, Mr Caoimhghin Ó Caolain, said yesterday that Sinn Féin was "a party that rejects criminality of any kind and that no republican worthy of the name can be involved in criminality". He said that anyone in Sinn Féin involved in criminal acts "should leave our ranks immediately".