Allister congratulates PSNI in Parliament
07 June 2005
Speaking during a major debate in the European parliament in Strasbourg, DUP MEP JIM ALLISTER took the opportunity to congratulate the PSNI over the charging of two men arising from the McCartney murder. Since the Parliament had recently debated the McCartney killing, Mr Allister was pleased to report this progress.
The DUP MEP proceeded to update the Parliament on the latest IMC report, pointing out how active the IRA still is. He also highlighted the absence of Sinn Fein from the debate.
In the course of his remarks Mr Allister said:-
"In this debate on terrorism I am pleased to welcome the fact that on Saturday morning last in Belfast IRA member, Terry Davidson, was charged in court with the murder of Robert McCartney and a second IRA person, Jim McCormick, was charged with the attempted murder of McCartney's friend, Brendan Devine.
I congratulate the PSNI in overcoming an IRA orchestrated and on-going campaign of intimidation to begin the process of securing justice in this notorious case. I trust many more charges will follow.
The mission of democracies must be to defeat terrorism, not merely contain or even tame terrorism. Softly, softly conciliation is merely banked by the terrorists, who then demand more and more.
We've lived through that in Northern Ireland. Our Government foolishly tolerated 'no go' areas for their own security forces, an 'acceptable level of violence', political status for prisoners, secret talks, side deals, the restructuring and renaming of the police, soft-peddling on paramilitary organised crime and the ultimate ignominy of early release of terrorists under the ill-conceived Belfast Agreement; and none of it worked.
As the latest IMC report shows we still have a functioning, recruiting, training, threatening and active IRA, that works hand-in-glove with its junior partner, Sinn Fein - who, of course, as usual are absent when we debate terrorism.
So, I implore the rest of Europe to learn the lesson, quicker than our Government did, that terrorism can't be tamed or sanitised, but must be resolutely defeated and driven out of business, including its sidelines of criminality."
