Latest report highlights process absurdities

By Eamonn McCann (for Irish Times)

Another week, another crisis in the peace process which passeth all understanding. Tuesday’s report into the state of the Northern Ireland ceasefires was studded with absurdities. DUP leader Peter Robinson had cited “the involvement of the IRA in murder [and] the continued existence of IRA structures” as reasons for leading his Ministers out of the Executive. Now he learns that he hadn’t known the half of it. Not only did Provisional IRA structures continue to exist, but its army council exercised a supervisory role over the operation of the party he shared office with. The corporate policy of the PIRA was to guide the movement along a constitutional path towards a united Ireland, the report confirmed. But, “individual PIRA members remain involved in criminal activity... and there have been isolated incidents of violence, including murders.”

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