The British government will today reveal its plans for the early release of prisoners in Northern Ireland. A spokesman for the Prime Minister, Mr Blair, said a bill on prisoner releases would be published today and debated in parliament next Wednesday.
Mr Blair has promised watertight legal guarantees to back up a clause in the agreement which says only prisoners whose organisations maintain "a complete and unequivocal ceasefire" will qualify. The legislation will treat every release application individually and those let out will be on licence, leaving the way for them to be imprisoned again by government order.
"If the organisations of which they are part go back to violence, then they will be seen to be part of those organisations," the spokesman said. Mr Blair has extended his definition of giving up violence to include further conditions:
An end to bombings, killings and beatings, claimed or unclaimed, an end to targeting and procurement of weapons;
Progressive dismantling of paramilitary structures actively directing and promoting violence.
He also wants an unequivocal commitment by the IRA and loyalist groups that the war is "finished, done with, gone".