BELFAST: The Irish Republican Army may still be active a decade after its public disbandment, a senior Northern Ireland official said yesterday, a revelation that if substantiated could bring down the government of the British province.
The remark prompted a flat denial from a senior figure in Sinn Fein, a party whose position as part of Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government is predicated on the dissolution of the IRA, its former armed wing.
An end to the IRA was a central plank of the 1998 Good Friday accord that largely ended three decades of violence in Northern Ireland between Catholics who favoured unification with the Republic of Ireland and Protestants wanting to stay British.
It also drew a line under decades of shootings and bombings in England designed to pressure the British government into relinquishing Northern Ireland.
Northern Ireland Justice Minister David Ford said police had told him the murder of former IRA member Kevin McGuigan in Belfast on Aug. 12 may have involved other members of the group.
“They were talking about people who are or were members of the Provisional IRA, so clearly there is a concern ... that there may be current IRA members involved,” Ford told the Irish state broadcaster RTE.
“This is the first time in which the police have said clearly and openly the potential for the IRA still existing,” said Ford, a member of the non-Sectarian Alliance Party. He cautioned however, that the possibility was only a line of inquiry and police must be given time to establish the facts.
Detective Superintendent Kevin Geddes said in a statement it had “no information to say at this stage whether this (killing) was sanctioned at a command level or not,” by the IRA.
REUTERS
BELFAST: The Irish Republican Army may still be active a decade after its public disbandment, a senior Northern Ireland official said yesterday, a revelation that if substantiated could bring down the government of the British province.
The remark prompted a flat denial from a senior figure in Sinn Fein, a party whose position as part of Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government is predicated on the dissolution of the IRA, its former armed wing.
An end to the IRA was a central plank of the 1998 Good Friday accord that largely ended three decades of violence in Northern Ireland between Catholics who favoured unification with the Republic of Ireland and Protestants wanting to stay British.
It also drew a line under decades of shootings and bombings in England designed to pressure the British government into relinquishing Northern Ireland.
Northern Ireland Justice Minister David Ford said police had told him the murder of former IRA member Kevin McGuigan in Belfast on Aug. 12 may have involved other members of the group.
“They were talking about people who are or were members of the Provisional IRA, so clearly there is a concern ... that there may be current IRA members involved,” Ford told the Irish state broadcaster RTE.
“This is the first time in which the police have said clearly and openly the potential for the IRA still existing,” said Ford, a member of the non-Sectarian Alliance Party. He cautioned however, that the possibility was only a line of inquiry and police must be given time to establish the facts.
Detective Superintendent Kevin Geddes said in a statement it had “no information to say at this stage whether this (killing) was sanctioned at a command level or not,” by the IRA.
REUTERS
