Paisley has ‘brutally frank’ meeting with Ahern

DUP leader the Rev Ian Paisley, the patriarch of the largest Unionist party in Northern Ireland, emerged from a meeting with Taoiseach Bertie Ahern yesterday to describe exchanges in the meeting as “brutally frank”.

The meetings at the Irish Embassy in London are the latest discussions aimed at exploring a means to bring about a resolution in the troubled Northern Ireland political sphere.

Dr Paisley has declared that nothing short of disbandment of the IRA will lead to the resumption of a power-sharing executive with Sinn Féin.

However, Mr Ahern said that “disbandment” was not a word that he had used when he called on the IRA to cease all paramilitary activity and criminality.

The two men spent an hour-and-a-half in the Irish Embassy building in London, apparently agreeing their differences.

While a statement from the IRA has been anticipated, Dr Paisley said that an IRA statement was “totally meaningless except we have actions.”

Mr Ahern conceded yesterday that a statement from the IRA was unlikely to be made before next month.

July is, however, a period of traditional cultural and civil unrest in the province as it is the peak “Marching Season” for the Protestant organisation the Orange Order.

Comments recently from Mr Ahern, critical of the Orange Order's stance on the parades issue, are viewed as increasing tensions, and following the meeting with Mr Ahern, Dr Paisley said that he had told the Taoiseach not to put his “dirty hands” on internal Northern Ireland affairs.

Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary David Lidington, commenting on the meeting, sought to raise the ante, declaring that the real test regarding the status of the IRA would only be resolved if it ceased to be an illegal organisation in the eyes of the British Government.

This was a sentiment, albeit aimed at the Taoiseach, that Dr Paisley had echoed to waiting reporters. He said that he had made clear to Mr Ahern that if the Irish government could share power with the IRA, then was the time to consider “having them back in the government of Northern ireland”.

However, Mr Ahern was adamant that “disband” was not a word that he wished to use when seeking a move away from criminality and paramilitarism. Mr Ahern said he saw nothing wrong with an IRA continuing in the form of what he described as a “commemorative organisation.”

Mr Ahern had a subsequent hour-long meeting with Prime Minister Tony Blair in the House of Commons - a meeting Downing Street described as a “general assessment” of the Northern Ireland political situation.

(SP/KMcA)