Sinn Fein pair deserve sympathy like all other past targets of terrorist threats

One would have to be quite cold hearted not to be moved by Mr Kelly when he shared with us the worries he has about his children and how he now has to check his car for booby trap bombs.

Maybe Gerry Kelly, Martina Anderson, Carál Ní Chuilín and many others within Sinn Fein will empathise with the thousands of innocents that PIRA not only daily threatened with death, but carried out those threats during the republican movement’s so-called ‘armed struggle’.

Maybe over the coming worrying nights they will realise the terror suffered by those who lived their lives dreading the knock on the door by evil PIRA gunmen sent to kill them or plant a bomb under their car.

Perhaps in the dark of coming nights they will think back to the murder of Patsy Gillespie, who was strapped into a proxy bomb, told to drive it to Coshquin whilst his family were held hostage by PIRA thugs, just like the dissidents.

Perhaps now they are in the firing line themselves they will reflect on the fruitless death, destruction and carnage PIRA wreaked on their fellow human beings over 30 long bloody years.

The IRA could acknowledge this by openly apologising to its victims, admit to their past and hand over those responsible for mass murders like La Mon, Clady and Enniskillen to the PSNI.

A good start would be to hand over the killers of Paul Quinn and give his family justice and closure.

Tom Nash, Derriaghy