Call for new efforts to end dissident violence
Fresh efforts should be made to end dissident republican violence in the North that may include talking to armed groups, it was claimed today.
And while Government today again denied it was in talks with dissidents, Chief Constable Matt Baggott said he would not see any such discussions as a betrayal.
Leader of the nationalist SDLP Margaret Ritchie also called for a review of intelligence gathering on dissidents who yesterday planted a bomb in Lurgan, Co Armagh, which was aimed at police, but injured three young children.
She called for an end to MI5 control of intelligence, which she said should revert to police.
“It is time for everyone to face up to some inconvenient political truths about this violence. It is now very clear that MI5 is not up to the task of leading intelligence-gathering in the north,” she said.
“”The SDLP believes we need an aggressive, high-profile, all-Ireland intelligence-gathering operation based on the bond of trust which has grown between police and public.“
Mr Baggott said any efforts to talk to dissidents would have to come with strong conditions attached, but he said ending violence was more than just a security issue.
“We are arresting and charging more than ever,” he told Irish broadcaster RTE, where he described cross-border police co-operation as “top class”.
“But clearly there has never been a 100% intelligence picture.
“What we have to do is relentlessly pursue them.”
The comments came after a two week period blighted by repeated dissident attacks which have narrowly avoided causing multiple deaths.
Northern Ireland First Minister Peter Robinson and deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness condemned overnight petrol bomb attacks on police near the scene of yesterday’s explosion in Lurgan.
A device exploded in a wheelie bin as police searched part of the town following a vague bomb warning that is now believed to have been an attempt to lure officers into a trap.
Two 12-year-old children and a two-year-old child suffered minor injuries from flying debris. Police said it was a miracle they were not more seriously hurt.
Mr Robinson said: “There can be no doubt as to just how depraved and evil these criminals are. Attacking young innocent children is callous and shows a complete disregard for the people of Northern Ireland.”
Mr McGuinness said: “There is no justification whatsoever for yesterday’s attack. No cause or belief will be served by attacks on our children. These attacks must stop and stop now, this is not the way forward for any section of our society.”
An arson attack on a car in Newry, Co Down, was also blamed on dissidents after it emerged the vehicle belonged to Damian McKevitt, a member of a local policing committee.
He told BBC he would not be intimidated: “It’s obviously an attempt to intimidate and obviously a warning for me to disassociate myself from the District Policing Partnership and with the new policing dispensation,” he said.
“This will actually re-energise and reinvigorate myself and make me more vocal.”
At an event to mark the 12th anniversary of the Omagh bombing, where a dissident Real IRA car bomb killed 29 people, including a woman pregnant with twins, there were renewed calls for an end to violence.
Michael Gallagher, whose son Aiden was killed in the 1998 bomb, said: “It is just unbelievable that these people will continue to plant bombs in close proximity to where people live and shop and work.
“That makes days like this all the more difficult.”
