About 700 people crowded into St Louise's School, off the Falls Road, to hear Jeffrey Donaldson of the DUP, journalist Eamon Dunphy and former Labour MP George Galloway debate at the West Belfast festival last night.
Organisers told the audience the PSNI had visited the school a number of times yesterday, and that the police advised Mr Donaldson he should stay away. He didn't and was accorded a rousing reception. The organisers said the police were also in attendance, even though they were not invited.
Mr Dunphy said the only reason the police were there was because he was a former Milwall player and they knew his form.
Mr Donaldson said he did not believe that, post 9/11, republicans could ever try to bomb the heart of London again, because it just would not be tolerated internationally.
But it was possible that the IRA would resume its violence, he said. "The IRA have got to meet what we call the 'the Blair necessities' - decommissioning and ending violence - so that unionists can have the confidence that the war is over."
He indicated that unionists could accept decommissioning taking place over time - "yes, within a defined timescale".
A former IRA prisoner in the audience told Mr Donaldson he was imprisoned after he was arrested with hundreds of pounds of explosives and mortars. He said he could easily go out and buy and make more explosives, were he so inclined.
Addressing Mr Donaldson, he added, "Are you going to kill me, or are you going to reach agreement with me? - because that is the only way people like me can be defused."
A Protestant clergyman in the audience, who spoke about burying members of his flock and his family killed by the IRA, accused the panellists, other than Mr Donaldson, of being blasé about decommissioning. He said republicans must take unionist concerns seriously.
Sinn Féin MEP Ms Mary Lou McDonald said republicans were anxious for agreement but it was important that unionists did not "demand the impossible" from them.
"The unionist community says it does not trust republicans; well listen guys, our community does not trust unionists," she said.
