Irish PM hails IRA disarmament

2005-09-26 22:48

Dublin - Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern hailed an official report on Monday that the Irish Republican Army had completed disarmed as a "landmark development".

He said the conclusions of the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning (IICD) the IRA had decommissioned its weapons was hugely important.

"The IICD statement that the IRA has met its commitment to put all its arms beyond use is of enormous consequence," Ahern told reporters.

"It is a landmark development. It is of real historic significance. The weapons of the IRA are gone. And they are gone in a manner which has been witnessed and verified."

Earlier on Monday, General John de Chastelain, the retired Canadian military chief overseeing the disarmament process, handed a report detailing the IRA's disarmament to the British and Irish governments.

"We are satisfied the arms decommissioned represent the totality of the IRA's arsenal," De Chastelain said in Belfast.

Ahern said: "Many believed this day would never come. Many would say it should have happened a long time ago.

"We are enormously relieved we can now close this difficult chapter of the peace process. Many people have suffered at the hands of these weapons. The suffering should never have happened.

"If today's developments mean anything, they mean that no future generations will suffer this pain and loss."

Ahern said people could now look forward with renewed hope to the future and particular to the day when the weapons of Protestant loyalist paramilitaries are also put beyond use.

Flanked by Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern and Justice Minister Michael McDowell, the Irish premier said that very large quantities of weapons had been involved in the latest act of disarmament.

He said these included ammunition, rifles, machine guns, mortars, missiles, handguns, explosives, explosive substances and other arms.

- AFP