David Campbell: We an investigation into organised crime and the IRA's role in it

The revelations that the UK and Irish governments may have 'turned a blind eye' to republican criminality (UUP presses for answers on Tony Blair government admission of turning 'blind eye' to IRA crime to Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, March 28), including murder in the early years of devolution following the Belfast Agreement comes as no surprise to me.

I have repeatedly been warning that the main beneficiaries of organised crime in Northern Ireland, and possibly the Republic of Ireland as well, is the republican movement and, as a consequence, Sinn Fein is arguably the best resourced political movement on these islands.

Furthermore, I have often wondered why such massive attention is given to the participation of loyalist groups in organised crime, or the insistence of the Sunday 'redtops' in their weekly salacious articles on current and former loyalist activists when statistically the contribution of loyalist-related crime palls into insignificance compared to that of the republican movement. The reason of course is that the exposure of the extent of continued republican crime would question Sinn Fein's fitness for government anywhere whereas loyalist criminality makes for a convenient distraction.

I vividly recall a meeting in Tony Blair's study in Downing Street when we (Ulster Unionist Party – UUP) were making a case for the creation of the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) to act as a continual overseer of paramilitary activity particularly by PIRA if we were to agree to a resumption of devolution inclusive of Sinn Fein. David Trimble argued that the IMC must have the remit to monitor and report on criminality in its broadest sense, not just what one might deem politically-motivated crime. The prime minister became visibly agitated at this and we got no straight answer and from that moment we understood that the proposed IMC would have no real teeth.

Let me offer one example by way of an illustration of the extent of republican control of crime. When David Trimble left office in 2005 we calculated that the extent of cross-border smuggling (almost entirely controlled by PIRA) cost the UK and Irish exchequers some £300 million annually in lost duties. My understanding is that this has grown to close to £1 billion per annum. Does anyone seriously think that PIRA simply handed this over? Can anyone remember the last meaningful conviction, or even apprehension, of cross-border smugglers ?

In launching the public consultation on the draft programme of government last September, Office of First Minister/Deputy First Minister (FM/DFM) published their analysis that 'organised crime' costs the Northern Ireland economy some £750 m per year. I wrote to FM/DFM to ask for a breakdown of this figure by area and organisation and I received no reply. I then wrote to the Head of the NI Civil Service to ask for the same information, and also to enquire why I got no reply from FM/DFM and I received no response from HOCS either. I then submitted an FoI request, and after some obfuscation received a reply that they did not hold the information I had requested !

The UUP is right in demanding a full inquiry into the 'turning of a blind eye' but it needs to be independent and far-reaching, examining the true extent of organised crime here, who has the money and where does it go to, and what is the ongoing role of the IRA Army Council in its organisation and distribution.

David Campbell,

Former Chief of Staff to First Minister Rt Hon