Paramilitary groups 'must go out of business'

07/12/2006 - 14:29:14
Paramilitary groups must go out of business in the North and stop issuing death threats to all people including civil servants, a senior nationalist politician said today.

After it emerged that a hardline loyalist threat against the life of an Irish Government official working in Belfast had been lifted, nationalist SDLP Assembly member Alban Maginness also insisted the demonising of people working in agencies like the British Irish Secretariat should stop.

The North Belfast MLA said people on both sides of the community in the North were saddened when Áine de Baróid was forced to flee Belfast after receiving warnings from a breakaway faction of the Ulster Defence Association.

Ms de Baróid has since been informed that the threat has been lifted and while initial reports suggested she had resumed her work, Irish Government sources today revealed she was in the process of returning to Belfast.

Mr Maginness said: “In the chaotic world of paramilitary connections it is difficult to know what status to give the statements that the threat has been withdrawn.

“Everyone must commend her courage in getting back to work.

“There are two lessons to be drawn from this unfortunate incident.

“The first is that all paramilitary groups have to go out of business so that no-one is faced with this type of threat again.

“The second and more important one is that the role of the secretariat and other such agencies have been demonised for cheap political advantage and they must stop.”

Ms de Baróid had been involved in outreach work with the loyalist community for the Irish Government.

In particular, she was a player in establishing contact between Belfast-born President Mary McAleese and her husband Martin and leaders of the Ulster Defence Association.

In August, the official learned that she was being targeted following an internal dispute within the UDA by a breakaway faction.

The threat also came amid reports that the Irish Government was building a high-security residence for its civil servants in the south of the city.

The house, which was being built in the exclusive Notting Hill area, contains bullet-proof windows and blast-proof gates.

Irish Government officials have denied that the house, nicknamed Bertie’s Bunker, would be used by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and his ministers as an official residence while in the North.