Appointing an independent person to act as a “halfway house” and engage with paramilitaries in Northern Ireland to achieve disbandment is being seriously considered, Westminster MPs have been told.
Britain’s Northern secretary Chris Heaton-Harris confirmed he had discussed the idea with the Irish Government following a recommendation in an expert report which stressed the “necessity” for formal engagement with paramilitaries as part of the “transition process”.
Addressing the Northern Affairs Committee, which is examining the impact of paramilitary activity, on Wednesday, Mr Heaton-Harris said he “truly welcomed” the recommendation – put forward by the Independent Reporting Commission (IRC) in December – to appoint an independent person to “carry out exploratory engagement” with illegal republican and loyalist groups.
“It’s an idea I’ve taken very seriously and tested the wider views on the recommendation with all sorts of people . . . including the Irish Government at the October and January meetings of British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference,” he said.
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“We’re continuing to talk about this because there seems to be a view that in trying to get paramilitary [groups] to transition in the past, it’s fallen down at different hurdles.
“And maybe having someone who is almost like the halfway house in the communication process to help guide and bring people who do want to go on this journey and help them through it . . . as would be very difficult for them to go to someone who’s in government or in the policing service.
“So having someone independent to point and help them . . . there is value in it and I am seriously looking at that recommendation, actually.”
Following the shooting of PSNI Detective Chief Inspector John Caldwell in Omagh last month, Mr Heaton-Harris was asked by committee chair Simon Hoare to give his assessment of the North’s security level and possible increase in further paramilitary activity.
Referring to the targeting of other officers – including an attempted bomb attack on two policemen in November – the Northern Secretary also noted there had been a “good period of time without such an attack”.
He said the security threat level by dissident republicans remained at “substantial”, the same as last March when it was lowered by the UK government from “severe” for the first time in 12 years, based on analysis of intelligence by MI5.
“The official answer I’ve heard many times is that this assessment is always being constantly looked at to see if it is the right level – and by those that I think do know what they’re doing,” Mr Heaton-Harris
The committee heard that paramilitary shootings, bombings and punishment attacks are at their lowest levels in a decade.
When pressed on future budgetary funding for community peacebuilding programmes, the Northern Secretary insisted that the restoration of the Stormont Assembly was vital as groups were currently relying on “ad hoc” funding.
Responding to concerns about what one DUP MP described as the “glorification of terrorism” following the attendance of some senior Sinn Féin members at the funeral of republican activist Rita O’Hare, Mr Heaton-Harris said it was also a matter for the Executive.
“I do understand that commemoration is an unbelievably complex issue and I have had representations personally from both communities on issues to do with this,” he said. “But it is something that the [Stormont] Executive leads on. We should not allow a culture to emerge which glorifies violence in the past, but this is something which sits in the devolved space.”
He added that it was important to highlight the “united condemnation” from all political parties following the shooting of DCI Caldwell.
