Madam, - It is profoundly wrong that an agreement which would result in IRA decommissioning and the restoration of devolved government in Northern Ireland is within reach but unattainable. The sensitive souls of the IRA are afflicted by the prospect of humiliation. Dr Paisley throws into the mix biblical language calculated to provoke the IRA to refuse to do what it is apparently willing to do. The IRA should Just Do It, all of it.
As decommissioning is a voluntary act, there is no humiliation in letting people see evidence that it has been done. The people concerned are not just the DUP: the IRA is answerable to the people of Ireland, who voted massively in 1998 for the Belfast Agreement. If the IRA leads, the loyalists will follow, allowing a divided society to find its way by more creative means than inflicting death and destruction. - Yours, etc.,
MYLES McSWINEY,
Cricklewood Park,
Belfast