Garret FitzGerald: In the latter half of 2004 only five issues remained to be resolved with Sinn Féin/IRA in the process of restoring peace and order to the North.
These were: unequivocal Sinn Féin/IRA repudiation of criminality; decommissioning of arms; government action in respect of members of the IRA "on the run"; explicit Sinn Féin/IRA acceptance of and involvement with the PSNI in respect of policing; and, finally, the problem of "restorative justice" schemes in the North.
The first of these issues, criminality, became acute in December 2004, when the two governments proposed to the IRA a wording to be used that would explicitly and unambiguously repudiate criminality.
Significantly, this was rejected by the IRA, which omitted this phrase from its response to the two governments. The two national leaders appeared to condone this omission, but the PD leadership - it was in government and close to the issues - was not prepared to go along with this.
So two days later Michael McDowell publicly challenged the dropping of the criminality assurance by the IRA. Thus exposed from within the Irish Government, Mr Blair and Mr Ahern were forced to act and, as a result, later in 2005 the IRA finally faced reality by repudiating criminality in explicit terms.
When, also last year, decommissioning was finally implemented, that left three outstanding issues.
The next one to surface was whether, and if so how, IRA members still "on the run" would be dealt with.
The British legislation on this issue was, however, dropped last week after the Sinn Féin leadership failed to persuade its supporters to accept the inclusion by the British government of a provision benefiting members of the security forces accused of crimes in the North.
That left only two significant problems. Last weekend Gerry Kelly said on behalf of Sinn Féin that "we are also committed to achieving and being part of the new policing dispensation. No half-measures or three-quarter measures will do."
That was interpreted in the media as perhaps clearing the way for progress on policing, but it appears that Sinn Féin is linking such progress to agreement on devolution, including devolution of justice. DUP acceptance of this may well be delayed for quite some time.
Proposals for "restorative justice" in the North must be viewed in the context of this likely delay in Sinn Féin's acceptance of the PSNI.
Restorative justice schemes involve bringing together victims and perpetrators of various forms of anti-social behaviour to work in repairing relationships and compensating victims of crime.
Yet in the North on January 28th, 2004, anticipating the ending of IRA "knee-capping" and other brutal forms of local paramilitary justice, Sinn Féin's Caitríona Ruane announced her party's intention to set up in Co Down what she described as "restorative justice groups" specifically "in order to offer an alternative to the PSNI".
At least 14 of these groups have been created in Belfast, south Down and south Armagh and Derry under the auspices of a body known as Community Restorative Justice Ireland (CRJ). The deputy project director of the group, Harry Maguire, has served a sentence for the murder of the two British corporals after they strayed into a funeral in west Belfast.
The CRJ is about to lose funding from US benefactor Chuck Feeney, and apparently expects to receive substantial financial aid soon from the British government.
In Northern Ireland suspicion that the British have privately agreed with Sinn Féin to back the CRJ's activities has been heightened by the fact that this body, together with its loyalist counterpart known as Northern Ireland Alternatives, are the only organisations that seem to have been shown the first draft of the British government's Consultation Document on Guidelines for Community-based Restorative Justice Schemes. That draft was withheld from the Policing Board and the North's political parties.
In view of the fact that Sinn Féin acceptance of the PSNI may now be postponed until after the DUP agrees to devolution, it seems highly significant that the final version of the consultation document, published on December 5th, does not require that these restorative justice bodies communicate on crime matters with the police.
These British draft guidelines propose to exempt those schemes from such a requirement, stating that "when aware of an offence or an offender, [a scheme] will communicate promptly either to a dedicated police officer or to an identified representative of the Probation Board for Northern Ireland or the Youth Justice Agency".
And, owing to deficiencies in the British 1967 Criminal Law Act, restorative justice teams would also appear to be exempt from the obligation to disclose information about arrestable offences to the police, and thus they are not required to have a direct working relationship with the PSNI.
The PSNI has sought a requirement of co-operation with the police, but this proposed amendment to the guidelines was apparently rejected by the NIO, and the police seem to have backed down on this demand.
There is, moreover, no provision for an overall regulatory body for these schemes, and there is no provision for an independent complaints body.
Furthermore, the official Criminal Justice Inspectorate does not have power to look at individual cases handled by restorative justice groups or to call for papers and persons, so it could not invigilate their activities.
It is now a matter for the British parliament to safeguard human rights in the North.
Unless political and parliamentary pressure forces the British government to change its draft guidelines, the net effect of all this could be to hand control of law and order in many parts of the North to what could become vigilante groups substantially manned by former IRA members. The activities of these groups may even be financed by the British authorities. By any democratic standard this would be totally unacceptable.
As I write I have in front of me a number of leaflets issued locally by these schemes. About half of the names of those involved in the schemes - they are printed on the back of the leaflets - are those of people with IRA records. In one instance the telephone number that residents are invited to ring is an 087 mobile number in the South.
Some of these groups have been established in Border counties where smuggling and crime are rife. We are entitled to ask what steps our Government has taken to secure assurance from the British government that, in its concern to satisfy Sinn Féin/IRA demands, it does not leave a law and order vacuum in parts of the North, including some Border counties. This is a matter where the State has a vital national interest.