The North's First Minister has rejected claims he tried to cover up allegations that the IRA sanctioned arms smuggling from the United States. The allegations were made by anti-agreement unionists after Mr David Trimble admitted his staff had contacted the US government before the broadcast of a television documentary on gunrunning.
The programme contained allegations from an FBI agent and special prosecutor that the IRA leadership had sanctioned the operation to bring a variety of weapons from Florida into the Republic.
Mr Trimble last week told the Assembly that the US National Security Adviser had called him about the programme but admitted yesterday that one of his staff had made the first phone call.
Mr Trimble strongly denied that his office had called to prevent the programme being broadcast, it had been rather to ask for information about it. "I regret I may have inadvertently misled the House on this occasion," the Ulster Unionist leader said.
The DUP's Mr Nigel Dodds accused Mr Trimble of choosing to engage in a "cover-up" rather than the exclusion of Sinn Fein ministers from government. This was "the greatest testimony to the First Minister's attitude to Sinn Fein/ IRA decommissioning and to democracy", he said.
"The appropriate response would have been not to go to the American authorities to urge them to try and get the program me changed but to come to this House and move the exclusion of Sinn Fein/IRA from the government of Northern Ireland." Mr Trimble described Mr Dodds's allegation as "untrue". His press secretary later issued a strong denial that Mr Trimble had tried in any way to stop the documentary. "Contrary to DUP allegations, no attempt whatsoever was made by the First Minister's office to suppress the broadcasting of the UTV Insight programme," he said.
"The purpose of the contact by an official from the First Minister's Office to an official from the National Security Council in Washington was simply to ascertain the true facts behind the allegations made in the programme.
"An ongoing IRA arms importation would obviously have serious implications. The First Minister's office would have needed to be in a position to respond as quickly as possible," he said.
Among the other measures debated in the Assembly was a bill intended to curb illegal street trading. It includes provision for the confiscation of the goods of those trading without a licence.