Jeffrey Donaldson says monitor could solve political crisis

A Democratic Unionist Party MP has said an independent mechanism to assess whether the IRA still existed could help to solve the current crisis.

Jeffrey Donaldson, MP for Lagan Valley, said Sinn Féin needed to recognise it had a problem before work could begin to try and solve the current political crisis in Northern Ireland, sparked when the PSNI said IRA members were involved in the killing of republican Kevin McGuigan.

The DUP has said it will seek to have Sinn Féin expelled from the Northern Ireland Executive, which would bring down the government in the North. DUP leaders are expected to meet British prime minister David Cameron next week.

The Ulster Unionist Party is expected to accept the recommendation of its leader, Mike Nesbitt, to leave the Executive.

Sinn Féin Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness accused the UUP of trying to “spook” the DUP into collapsing the Belfast Agreement institutions for “purely electoral gain”.

Restoring trust

Mr Nesbitt on Friday told

RTÉ

trust had been lost and suggested it would be a step forward if Sinn Féin were to say “the IRA exists but they will not exist for the old reasons”; that would be a step.

Speaking to The Irish Times, Mr Donaldson said: "We are beyond the point where we can rely on the word of Sinn Féin leadership."

He said it would be a different situation if Sinn Féin “came clean” and said murder had been carried out by members of the Provisional IRA and said they would work to rectify the situation.

He said the Sinn Féin leadership needed to “recognise they have a problem” and then work could begin to solve the crisis.

Unfair

“Of course we are keen to try and find way to reconcile these issues,” Mr Donaldson said.

“How do you diagnose the patient if they don’t admit there is something wrong?”

He said it was unfair that the onus was on PSNI Chief Constable George Hamilton to say whether the IRA existed and suggested an independent mechanism might be needed.

“Some kind of a mechanism, to ensure that when people say this is over, it is over,” Mr Donaldson said.

The Alliance Party and UUP have suggested the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC), or a similar organisation, could help assess the situation.

The IMC issued its final report in February 2011 and Mr Donaldson said its “absence is keenly felt”.

He called for the return of the IMC and said he did not want to be “prescriptive” about what mechanism could be put in place to “monitor these situations”.

A Sinn Féin source said it had always opposed the IMC.

On Mr Nesbitt’s suggestion that the party could say the IRA no longer existed for the “old reasons”, the source said: “The chief constable has already said that about the IRA. Our position is that the IRA has gone.”

Meeting

Minister for Foreign Affairs

Charlie Flanagan

and Minister for Justice

Frances Fitzgerald

are due to meet Northern Ireland Secretary

Theresa Villiers

in Dublin on Tuesday.

Mr Flanagan told Newstalk radio he had been in contact with Ms Villiers and party leaders in recent days.

“We are going to be busy now for the next few days. I believe it is important that people remain calm and reflective of the situation.”

When asked if he believed the IRA had gone away, he said: “It’s not a question of what I believe, it’s a question of the facts. I believe it is important in the context of any governance situation that there isn’t a side army, that there isn’t a group that are not part of the legal framework of the State.”