TUV criticises Queen's University Belfast report on paramilitaries saying it 'ignores the IRA'

The report is entitled "Understanding the persistence of armed/paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland", and was released on Wednesday by Queen’s University Belfast.

The report refers to the organisations as either paramilitaries or “armed groups”; the word "terror" or its variants appears once in the report, in quotes.

Individual groups are generally not mentioned by name, except for one passing reference to the PIRA.

The report was produced by Queen’s University Belfast, Ulster University, Co-operation Ireland, and the Strategic Investment Board (a statutory body which largely helps the government to complete large infrastructure projects).

TUV MLA Timothy Gaston said: “It is quite incredible that academics would put their name to a report which would overlook the most significant insight into the continuing threat of paramilitarism in recent years."

This is, namely, the paramilitary assessment done in the aftermath of the Provisional IRA murder of Kevin McGuigan.

"It stated that the PIRA retained an ‘Army Council’ which members believed oversaw both the PIRA and Sinn Fein with an overarching strategy,” he said.

"It retained ‘departments’ with specific responsibilities and still had weapons which had not been decommissioned.”

The new Queen’s report “is most of note primarily because it ignores these obvious points,” concluded Mr Gaston.

• ‘OFFERING POSITIVE LEADERSHIP’:

Prof Dominic Bryan, one of the co-authors, spoke about the report on The Nolan Show on Wednesday.

He said he is "sympathetic" with the idea "we shouldn't be offering these groups legitimacy".

He also stressed that some things they do can be positive.

"As social groups, some of these paramilitary areas have developed in one direction, and others in another direction," he said.

"So when Edwin Poots says he thinks broadly some of these are 'old boys groups' I think they're a bit more than that because a lot of them are involved in a lot of very positive community leadership and have been for some time.

"However in the same organisations there can be areas where groups are stuck, where there is still high levels of coercive control and high levels of illegality."

He went on to add that "they have a great deal of legitimacy in our society... people support them, they do work in their local communities".

He added: "They also provide sorts of services and utilities. Now some of those are illegal, anything from money lending and drugs, some of those are very positive..."

Asked by Mr Nolan whether he was saying money-lenders are positive, he replied: "No, no, no, no. I'm saying that some of the services they offer have been positive in some areas. I'm absolutely not saying money-lending, drug dealing..."

Mr Nolan then asked "what services do these gangsters provide that's positive?"

The professor replied: "What's interesting and important is they often fill a space where there's a level of need. And this is where we get to the crux of it.

"When they do that in society, when they do that in areas, they fulfil, they get a level of legitimacy.

"In some senses they're sort of replacing the work the state should be doing."

The report found that such groups still exist by offering "utility" to communities including "alternative justice mechanisms", by drawing on "the historical narrative of a political cause", and through "creating fear through the application of threat and coercion".

Asked why the report did not look at specific named groups, he said: “It’s not our task to try and look narrowly at the different groups…

"I think the question is how do we examine a way forward when we’re dealing with that diversity.

"So I do think some community development work has worked. I do think some of these organisations in part have moved on.

"Whilst I’m also sympathetic with [the] position that we shouldn’t be offering these groups legitimacy.”