We need a tougher criminal justice approach to terror

This unanimity among the main political parties in Northern Ireland is of course welcome, and far preferable to any ambiguity, but it is not enough.

There needs to be cross-party support for urgent political reform to ensure courts cannot implement a liberal bail policy for people on serious terror charges and to ensure courts cannot give soft sentences to thugs convicted of such crime.

Sinn Fein would not support such a toughening of the criminal justice approach to terrorism, but in a remotely normal and democratic political environment their opposition to reform would be bypassed by a majority of MLAs.

Instead, SF, which already had a veto within Stormont, went further and brought down devolution. There is a consensus among the great and the good it will not return until both sides compromise (ie everyone else meets SF red lines).

Short of a general election that somehow manages to return a right wing Conservative government, there is now almost no chance of direct rule being introduced, which would be the easiest way to get a robust security approach to those who are currently plotting murder and destruction.

The timid approach to terror is all the more regrettable given that a sensible approach to protecting life would be uncontroversial outside Ireland, given that the rest of the western world has been resolute against terrorism post 911, and all the more so when their own cities have experienced random violence that either targets, or puts at risk, civilians.

In recent years, southern Irish politicians including Simon Coveney and Eamon O’Cuiv have made comments that implied that the handling of the dissident threat in the Northwest by the authorities has contributed to tensions there.

The rest of us should make clear our support for the excellent work of the PSNI and intelligence agencies in relentlessly trying to track, pursue and thwart the terror gangs.