Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern has urged that new conditions not be imposed on the IRA to facilitate a DUP/Sinn Féin powersharing deal after Jeffrey Donaldson, of the DUP, said the organisation's command and control structure must be dismantled.
At a fringe event at the Conservative Party conference in Bournemouth, DUP deputy leader Peter Robinson said there must be an "end to IRA paramilitary and criminal activity".
Mr Donaldson, the DUP MP for Lagan Valley, appeared to go beyond that demand when he said yesterday his party believed the IRA must address its command and control structure if there was going to be political progress.
"If they are no longer engaged in criminal or paramilitary activity, there is no need for that and we will want to see that structure dismantled," said Mr Donaldson. "We don't want to pre-empt the IMC [Independent Monitoring Commission] report but I think most people will want to ensure that what the IMC says is reflected by the reality on the ground over a period of time," he added.
However, Mr Ahern, who met a number of the parties at Parliament Buildings, Stormont yesterday in preparation for next week's devolution talks in Scotland, opposed the suggestion of additional requirements of the IRA.
"I don't think people should be putting in conditions at this stage because we all know what the net issues are. Even if we come to them on November 24th, 2006, or 2007, they will still be the same issues," he said.
"I think I will leave it up to the IMC to state what the position is in relation to the Provisional IRA but it is quite clear from anybody's reading, if you see any graph produced by the IMC as to the level of activity and how that has fallen to virtually nothing over the last number of months, that's been fairly constant," he added.
"I think you see fairly clearly that the Provisional movement has done exactly what they undertook to do and they have to all intents and purposes moved to a position where they are now exclusively dealing with politics and not as they were doing previously." On whether Sinn Féin would sign up to policing, as the DUP is also demanding, Mr Ahern said: "I think it's quite clear that they have indicated that they understand that they have to move on this issue."
