The report by the Independent Monitoring Commission on paramilitary activity in the North makes for depressing reading. Ten years after the declaration of an IRA ceasefire and six years after the Belfast Agreement was signed, the commission found that although paramilitary activity had diminished in recent months there were no signs that the IRA was about to go out of business.
The document contained some positive aspects. But its publication at this sensitive time in political negotiations casts a harsh light on the distance both communities have to travel before they can enjoy a normal democratic existence. Loyalist paramilitary violence and crime was found to be running at three times the level of republican activity. And while a reduction in IRA violence and criminality had been charted during the past six months, the organisation continued to recruit and train members.
It is inevitable that the findings of the commission will be seized upon within the Democratic Unionist Party as evidence that republicans cannot be trusted and that sharing power with Sinn Féin in a revived executive would be simply unsustainable. Such a response is self-serving. For it has become increasingly clear that a sizable section of DUP members is opposed to sharing power with Sinn Féin at this time and the leadership of the party is unlikely to go against their wishes.
Sinn Féin has responded in an equally predictable fashion and dismissed the report as lacking in credibility. Having consistently opposed the work of the IMC, which was established by the two governments to monitor paramilitary activity and suggest consequential sanctions against relevant political parties, Sinn Féin said the report would be of little interest to nationalists. It is mistaken.
The time when such unpalatable truths and realities could be ignored, in order to make incremental political progress, has passed. We have reached a stage where irrevocable decisions must be made in terms of paramilitary activity and political accommodations if the terms of the Belfast Agreement are to be implemented in full. There can be no place in a democratic society for paramilitary organisations.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Ahern, spelt out this reality for the DUP and the IRA last month when he said the same democratic standards would apply to Sinn Féin's membership of government on both sides of the Border. As the Taoiseach subsequently explained, there can only be one army. In that regard, the continuing existence of the IRA will act as a bar to Sinn Féin's participation in government in both jurisdictions.
The Taoiseach has identified November 25th the date by which a breakthrough will have to be achieved if devolved government is to be re-established in the short term. As things stand, agreement appears unlikely because of intransigent attitudes within the DUP and the unacceptable activities of the IRA.