Northern Ireland Office

Secretary of State, Paul Murphy MP, has highlighted the need for the issue of criminality to be resolved to allow political progress to be made. He was speaking after the Prime Minister met with Sinn Fein at Chequers on Friday. Mr Murphy said: "Unless we resolve this issue of criminality, then I don't think we have the trust or the confidence amongst the parties in Northern Ireland to be able to restore the Assembly or the Executive, and that is the problem we've got at the moment. We really do have to ensure that trust returns, but that won't happen until the whole question of the IRA and criminality is addressed.

"We know as a Government that the IRA carried out this raid. Our view is that until that issue is resolved amongst the IRA, the whole question of criminality and giving it up, unless paramilitary activity ceases, then we simply will not be able to go on the way that we have in the past in the peace process. Now that's bad news for everybody, I'm not delighted, far from it, to say any of that because I want to see progress which we nearly had before Christmas. People in Northern Ireland want progress in the peace process, but they also want to see an end to criminal activity whether it's from the republican side or whether it's from the loyalist side.

"We were aware and have been aware for sometime that there are all sorts of criminal activities going on in Northern Ireland amongst republicans and amongst loyalists. Obviously the Northern Bank robbery itself was the most dramatic of those, it's the biggest bank robbery in history and it highlights the issue of criminality. Now we knew when we signed that Good Friday Agreement back in 1998 that criminal activity wouldn't end overnight, but it's been a long time since then and frankly I think we've got to get to a situation now that there is a break between criminality on the one hand and the political process on the other. Of course over 30 years all these things were very difficult to handle, but people in Northern Ireland are going ahead in their new lives in their own way and it's for us now as politicians to try and find that way ahead, but without an end to the criminal activity, which the Prime Minister gave very starkly that message today to Gerry Adams, that just won't happen.