IRA bank raid claims have “damaged” peace process says minister
The IRA’s alleged involvement in a £26m bank heist has damaged the peace process, Northern Ireland Secretary Paul Murphy has said.
Speaking to BBC Radio Four’s Today programme on Saturday, Mr Murphy stressed the claimed involvement of paramilitary republicans in the raid had “serious implications for the peace process.”
“Those implications are essentially a lack of trust and confidence between political parties in Northern Ireland whose job it is to get together to try to do that deal in bringing back the assembly and executive,” added the Northern Ireland Secretary.
“That is why this is such a huge disappointment to us in government and to everybody involved in the peace process.”
Speaking earlier in New York, Mr Murphy said the IRA’s alleged role in the December 20th raid on the head office of the Northern Bank in Belfast, made it unlikely that devolution would be restored ahead of the next general election.
On Friday, Northern Ireland’s chief police constable, Hugh Orde told reporters that he had come to the view that the paramilitary group were responsible for the robbery on the basis of evidence collated by his investigators.
Sinn Fein, who are holding an emergency meeting on the issue in Dublin on Saturday, have fiercely denied the allegation, with the republican party’s leader Martin McGuinness challenging Mr Orde to produce evidence to back up his claim.
The Northern Ireland Secretary is expected to make a statement to Parliament next week, when MPs will debate the future of power sharing in the province.
The Conservatives have said that the Government should consider the possibility of excluding Sinn Fein from the process following Mr Orde’s statement.
“I have no doubt that if the IRA was responsible for this bank robbery that members of Sinn Fein must, at the minimum, have been aware that this was being planned,” Conservative Northern Ireland spokesman David Lidington told Today.
.
