Allister spells it out in Strasbourg
01 October 2005
Responding to a call by Sinn Fein MEP, Mary Lou McDonald, in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, for the DUP to now engage with Sinn Fein, following today's claimed events, Jim Allister MEP said:-
"For over 30 years, the guns of the IRA have been trained on the people of Northern Ireland, particularly the majority community. Today, after years of brutally murdering hundreds of innocent men, women and children - and further years of broken promises - it is claimed that the IRA has decommissioned its weapons, but, again, with no transparency.
If decommissioning has occurred, that, of course, is welcome, but there can and must be no political reward for putting beyond use guns which they never should have had or used.
With or without its weapons, the IRA is a vicious criminal organisation - as the murder of Robert McCartney, without guns, demonstrates. It is mired in criminality. Until Sinn Fein/IRA fully and irreversibly makes the transition, not just from the paths of murder, but also abandons its bank robbing, money laundering, fuel smuggling and gives up its evil empire of crime, until then, it can have no place in democratic government.
On behalf of the largest party in Northern Ireland, I make it plain that we have no more intention of partnering into government the associates of criminal gangsters than we had of facilitating armed gangsters.
Government is for democrats. When Sinn Fein decontaminates from all their criminal ways, then it will be time enough for anyone to propose them for government in Ireland, North or South."
