05/06/2003
Durkan calls for RIR disbandment
SDLP Leader Mark Durkan has called for the Royal Irish Regiment's home battalions to be scrapped.
Mr Durkan was speaking a day after Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness also called for the RIR's disbandment
The SDLP leader said: “At a time when we are bringing about a representative police service and peaceful normality, it is wrong to keep army battalions on duty here in the North drawn exclusively from one side of the community.
“The RIR is directly descended from the deeply discredited UDR and like it, does not command the confidence of the nationalist community. In the completion context, the RIR will be irrefutably redundant and should be wound up accordingly. Retaining a ‘continuity UDR’ will have no policing or other positive contribution and would serve only as an ‘outdoor relief’ scheme for disaffected unionism."
Mr Durkan said it was deeply ironic that the same unionist politicians who give out about the political interference in policing were leading the campaign for the RIR to be kept on despite the British Army’s own assessment that it will no longer be required.
“If people were serious about the need to back up policing then they would focus on ensuring that money which would otherwise be spent on the RIR and others will all be added to the policing budget. Maintaining the RIR would literally be at the expense of better policing," he added.
Northern Ireland Secretary of State Paul Murphy has already met Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon to discuss the future of the RIR.
An announcement over the home Regiment's future is expected next week.
(MB)
Mr Durkan was speaking a day after Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness also called for the RIR's disbandment
The SDLP leader said: “At a time when we are bringing about a representative police service and peaceful normality, it is wrong to keep army battalions on duty here in the North drawn exclusively from one side of the community.
“The RIR is directly descended from the deeply discredited UDR and like it, does not command the confidence of the nationalist community. In the completion context, the RIR will be irrefutably redundant and should be wound up accordingly. Retaining a ‘continuity UDR’ will have no policing or other positive contribution and would serve only as an ‘outdoor relief’ scheme for disaffected unionism."
Mr Durkan said it was deeply ironic that the same unionist politicians who give out about the political interference in policing were leading the campaign for the RIR to be kept on despite the British Army’s own assessment that it will no longer be required.
“If people were serious about the need to back up policing then they would focus on ensuring that money which would otherwise be spent on the RIR and others will all be added to the policing budget. Maintaining the RIR would literally be at the expense of better policing," he added.
Northern Ireland Secretary of State Paul Murphy has already met Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon to discuss the future of the RIR.
An announcement over the home Regiment's future is expected next week.
(MB)
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