Jim Allister: Another report from the IRC that does not examine the status of the IRA yet recommends dialogue with terrorists

As it par for the course when it comes to the Independent Reporting Commission (IRC), the most telling thing about their report is what it does not say.

While it does manage to mention the IRA it only does so in a context of noting the 30th anniversary of the ceasefires. No comment on the status of the IRA Army Council or the weapons or departments it retains. Such is to be expected from a body which is nothing more than a creature of the process.

The report does, however, make some dangerous recommendations. The most significant of these is when the IRC revisits its suggestion that illegal terrorist groups should go through a deproscription process which would see groups like the IRA, UVF and UDA become legal. This suggestion is no less offensive today than it was when it was first floated by the IRC. What a gross insult to the victims of terrorists if membership of the organisations which caused so much death and destruction was to become legal with all the open glorification of terror which would come with that!

An important step along that road which has clearly been flagged up before the launch of the report is on pages 4 and 5 where the ICR propose the appointment of an “Independent Person who would scope out and prepare the ground with various stakeholders for what a possible formal process of engagement and Group Transition might look like. We regard this as a vital step in the journey towards ending paramilitarism in Northern Ireland”.

This is clearly a fancy way of advocating direct dialogue with illegal terrorist groups which retain weapons and still instil fear in local communities about how they might become legal. Such a development would represent yet another step into the moral bankruptcy which has characterised the process.

Jim Allister KC, MP for North Antrim, TUV leader