Paisley: IRA must ‘walk the walk’
Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Dr Ian Paisley has flatly refused to share power with Sinn Fein unless the IRA “walk the walk”.
Any IRA statement pledging to renounce violence was insufficient in itself to convince unionist parties to share power with Sinn Fein, he said last night.
Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair met on Monday to discuss the possibility of renewing power-sharing in Northern Ireland.
The gathering came as politicians await a statement from the IRA in which the Provisionals are expected to pledge an end to illegal activities.
Yesterday, Mr Blair and Mr Ahern insisted the IRA must make a public pledge to end verifiably all criminal and paramilitary activity.
At Downing Street, Mr Blair called for a “credible” pledge to end all criminality.
Such a pledge would press an “obligation” on the DUP to accept power-sharing, he argued.
“It will be difficult, but on the other hand if it is done, and it is done genuinely and violence is genuinely given up, then the obligation then transfers to unionists to make sure they drop their opposition to going in to a power-sharing executive,” Mr Blair said.
Mr Ahern, for his part, said both Dublin and London were steadfast on the decision to implement all aspects of the Good Friday Agreement.
But Rev Paisley, leader of Northern Ireland’s largest unionist party, took a stricter line saying talk must be accompanied with concrete action.
“It is time to walk the walk,” said the North Antrim MP.
Dr Paisley last night said the “spin” from Westminster was a mere “fig leaf” covering over “the nakedness of IRA depravity”.
“In no way are the unionist people going to settle for anything that bears the trademarks of IRA duplicity,” he said defiantly.
In December the DUP leader demanded the right to see the IRA put its weapons beyond verifiable use before joining republican parties at Stormont.
The IRA is accused of carrying out last December’s £26.5 million Northern Bank heist in Belfast and, separately, murdering father-of-two Robert McCartney in the same city a month later.
