Debate contribution: Tackling Paramilitarism

Debate contribution by Mr Timothy Gaston on 15 October 2024.

MLA

Mr Timothy Gaston

Party at the time

Traditional Unionist Voice

Date

15 October 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Opposition Business

Heading

Tackling Paramilitarism

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4592586

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I feel the need to remind the House that if we are going to talk about the ongoing presence of paramilitary organisations, we need to address the elephant in the room, which is the IRA army council that oversees Sinn Féin. The motion, which, I believe, was written with the best of intentions, is calling on the First Minister and her deputy:

"to introduce a comprehensive review of the tackling paramilitarism, criminality and organised crime programme to ensure that actions within the final Programme for Government genuinely tackle the scourge of paramilitarism in our society."

Really? I remind the House that, on 20 October 2015, an assessment on paramilitary groups was published by the NIO. That report was commissioned in the aftermath of the Provisional IRA murder of Kevin McGuigan. It made clear that the IRA retained an army council, which, members believed, oversaw both the PIRA and Sinn Féin with an overarching strategy, retained departments with specific responsibilities and still had weapons that had not been decommissioned. Where is the democratic mandate of the army council that oversees the lead party of government? In February 2020, the PSNI reconfirmed that it still believes that the Provisional IRA army council oversees the IRA and Sinn Féin. That statement was echoed by Garda Commissioner Drew Harris. However, we do not have to go back to 2020 to find reports that point out the continuing role of the Provos in Northern Ireland. I note that the Executive Office was not present, just a few weeks ago, at the launch of a report entitled '"When you know what they are capable of": Paramilitary-related Gendered Coercive Control' by Aisling Swaine, produced by Foyle Women's Aid. The Justice Minister thought that it was important enough to be there, but the First Minister did not. I wonder whether that was because the contents of the report left the "First Minister for all" feeling uncomfortable. I wonder whether the First Minister has read the report. Consider the contents of pages 24 and 25 of that document:

"One victim–survivor spoke of a friend who was too afraid to participate in this research, but who lived under threat and fear of her partner and his paramilitary involvement: '… there’s thousands of pounds in her name, because he had a gambling problem. But he would’ve used the IRA … Because he said to her that he’ll make sure that she has no job, no house, no car. He’ll break her jaw if she ever said anything that went on within that organisation … I have my wains, so I wasn’t available at the click of the fingers to get up and go and do this that and the other. Where she didn’t, and she was maybe driving places and stuff like that there …[and when she left] she got more threats like I’ll break your jaw, I’ll burn your car, I’ll burn your house and you’ll lose your job and stuff like that.'"

That is the reality of the fear that the IRA continues to engender in Northern Ireland right up to the present day, yet the motion calls on the First Minister to introduce a comprehensive review of the tackling paramilitarism programme. Ach, come on. I remind the House that, due to the perverse Belfast Agreement, the Executive are led by someone who tells us that there was no alternative to IRA terror; no alternative to the murders of Cecil Cunningham and John Haslett, two RUC officers murdered by the IRA 53 years ago today; no alternative to the murder of Herbert Kernaghan, an off-duty UDR man who was shot in front of children as young as six years old while delivering fruit and vegetables to a primary school in Rosslea 45 years ago today; no alternative to the murder of 22-year-old soldier Alan Stock, killed 41 years ago today by IRA terrorists hiding behind a tombstone at the end of a command wire; and no alternative to the murder of RUC dog handler Samuel Todd, who died 34 years ago today, a few days after being shot by the IRA. The House is in no position to lecture on the harm of paramilitarism when its very existence is evidence that, for some, violence pays.

706 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Qualifying Legacy of the Troubles, victims and paramilitarism

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:26 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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