Jim Allister: Small wonder Sinn Fein welcome a report on paramilitaries that does not even name the IRA
One would be forgiven for forgetting that the Independent Reporting Commission was set up in the wake of the Provisional IRA murder of Kevin McGuigan in 2015.
In 132 pages it doesn’t even manage to mention the PIRA, much less their Army Council, an organisation which we were told in the aftermath of the McGuigan murder has a key role in directing and overseeing Sinn Fein.
Quite frankly it is a whitewash.
Small wonder that Sinn Fein have welcomed the publication of the report!
What use is a report on what progress is being made towards ending paramilitarism if it provides no assessment of the proscribed organisations whose demise it is supposed to be overseeing?
Worse than that — it even avoids naming them!
When this body was set up TUV said that it was just another fig leaf to keep the process on the road after a PIRA murder.
Monday’s report proves that our assessment was correct.
Jim Allister QC MLA, North Antrim