If Sinn Fein cannot deliver on the decommissioning commitment within two years, the party has been admitted under false pretences to the multi-party talks leading to the Belfast Agreement, the Labour Party leader, Mr Ruairi Quinn, has said.
It was not good enough for the Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, to insist decommissioning could not be addressed because Sinn Fein could not deliver; nor could the First Minister, Mr David Trimble, be allowed to rely on a precondition that did not exist, Mr Quinn told the Irish Association in Dublin yesterday. Insisting that adherence to the text of the Belfast Agreement was the central and common obligation for the participating parties, he said such importance was attached to securing Sinn Fein participation in the talks that "a degree of fudge and equivocation has been tolerated which would not be permitted from any normal political party relying purely on its electoral mandate".
"To put it bluntly, if, in the short, medium or long term - in any event, within two years - Sinn Fein cannot deliver on the decommissioning commitment, then it was admitted to the talks under false pretences," Mr Quinn said. To an extent it was possible to sympathise with Mr Trimble. In an attempt to secure the "soft No" unionist vote, indications were given which permitted him to make decommissioning a crunch issue. For Sinn Fein, meanwhile, "it is close to pay-back time," he said.
The problems being confronted by Mr Trimble and Mr Seamus Mallon in assembling a shadow executive were based on trust, disarmament and confidence.
"One commentator has suggested to me an analysis of the current impasse. The UUP are insisting on the implementation of a clause which doesn't exist in the agreement and Sinn Fein are insisting on ignoring another which is," Mr Quinn said.
Decommissioning was not really about the removal of guns from politics. Mr Trimble must know that guns could be bought anew and that knowledge, once acquired, was never fully forgotten.
However, Sinn Fein must understand the desire of one community to see the end of the very guns it believed were turned against it for almost 30 years. Political and historical culture was at the heart of the difficulties facing the Belfast Agreement in the next millennium.
Meanwhile, as Northern Ireland "started afresh" it had an opportunity to create for itself newer and more innovative government structures than those prevailing either in Dublin or Westminster. The Northern Ireland administration had two options - it could either replicate and reflect at regional level the existing models of departmental structures in Whitehall or Merrion Street, or it could use the opportunity to create a new form of governmental structure.
The long-term success of the new cross-Border institutions would be crucial to secure nationalists' consent for the new Northern Ireland. There was a need for both administrations in Northern Ireland and in the Republic to quickly identify at least four or five areas for concrete action.
Suggesting the possibility of two police academies - North and South - he said there was potential for sharing some of the burden of recruiting the next generation of police officers. Academies might be able to engage in a programme of mutual exchange between police students.
Meanwhile, Labour would like to see, in the Republic, the emergence of the European social-democrat versus Christian-democratic political model, Mr Quinn said.