---

Northern Ireland Bill

I agree entirely. The third challenge, which is a challenge not only for the republican movement but for us in the House, is to answer the question, what is the status of the Provisional IRA? The IMC report today talks still about the barbarous practice of exiling continuing to be enforced by both republican and loyalist paramilitary groups. It talks about paramilitary groups—the IRA as well as loyalists—acting as ““community disciplinarians””, imposing their rule on nationalist or loyalist people, rather than allowing the rule of law to prevail. We hear the comments of the Irish Justice Minister, who wrote in the Sunday Independent on 26 March that the resources of the IRA"““are very substantial. They are available for the subversion of democracy.””" On 11 April, he told the Irish Independent that"““the IRA constitution continues to be treasonable and subversive””." One cannot lightly ignore such statements. I would welcome it if the Provisional IRA really were turning itself into what the right hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley) has referred to as an old boys association. I would not welcome the commemorative events of such a body, but it would be much better and easier to live with than the violent paramilitary conspiracy that the Provisional IRA has been for so many years. At some stage, we in the House will have to work out how we think of the IRA. On several occasions, the Secretary of State has said that the Provisional IRA is no longer a terrorist threat. To be fair, the IMC bears him out and I am prepared to accept its word, but we are left with an odd situation in which an organisation is apparently no longer deemed to be a terrorist threat but membership of it is still a criminal offence both in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. If at some stage the Government said that they were considering de-proscribing the IRA because there was clear evidence that it had utterly changed in character, I could understand it, although I should want to be persuaded. But to say on the one hand that the organisation can be trusted and that it is not a terrorist threat, yet on the other that it is still a criminal offence to belong to it strikes me as a bit inconsistent and ambiguous. We must get straight in our minds how we are to treat the organisation in the future.