If the IRC will not give details on terrorist gangs then Northern Ireland needs a new body that will

The Independent Reporting Commission (IRC) has once again not mentioned any paramilitary group.

Its 2022 report yesterday reads at points like the advice of social workers.

The IRC wants dialogue with paramilitary groups to encourage them to disband, “in parallel with the twin tracks of a policing and criminal justice response and addressing the socio-economic challenges of the communities concerned”.

Northern Ireland needs to know the status of paramilitary groups such as dissident murder gangs, and loyalist extortionists, and the IRA, which wields so much influence on society (evident in the pitiful response of public bodies to the Bobby Storey terrorist funeral mass Covid breach). If the IRC cannot fulfil that role then it should be wound up. Northern Ireland does not need more social work-style analysis of such groups.

Most hardened criminals will be delighted if the response to their illegality is one of negotiation rather than sanction.

It is true that paramilitary penetration of Northern Ireland will not be solved by penalty alone. After all, Sinn Fein, which has long been seen as inextricably linked to the IRA, has support from almost a third of NI voters, and is the Republic’s most popular party.

The Irish authorities have never wanted pressure put on the IRA. UK officials, while lacking sympathy with republicans, want to keep them in politics. But the least that the public deserves is an appraisal of vile paramilitary groups.

The IRC suggests a body established by “the two governments” oversee some of its recommendations. Setting aside the inappropriateness of the IRC telling politicians what they should or should not establish, the idea is a bad one. NI is part of the UK, so London alone has a duty to monitor terrorists within its territory and tell us all what it has found.