They haven't gone away, you know

Gerry Adams' famous words some years ago, and they're still true. Although the weapons are gone (or most of them, in my opinion), the Provisional IRA's command structures are still firmly in place, and it exists ready for action.

 

When is the IRA not the IRA? Answer: when its members kill without being asked. The PSNI Chief Constable has now confirmed that IRA members were involved in the killing of Paul Quinn, but he sees no indication that it was authorised by the IRA leadership. Whether it's Robert McCartney, hacked to a lingering death in Belfast, or Paul Quinn who was beaten to a pulp by 20 men and took 30 long minutes to go screaming, then whimpering, into a death that must have seemed so welcoming, the Republican terrorists are still at large and are a massive threat to democracy and, hence, our newly-won devolved government.

 

If there was ever any justification for the IRA fighting against a repressive Dublin Castle régime a hundred years ago, that has long evaporated. Across the western world blind nationalism has given way to inclusive democracy, and the only suppressed people in Ireland today are the victims of paramilitaries in the hardline parts of South Armagh, Belfast and East Antrim.

 

The next step in the "peace process" is for the IRA to disband. It has no more reason to exist, and while it remains in place it's a threat to democracy, weakening Sinn Féin's credibility north and south.

 

Democracies have no place for private armies.