Decommissioning Of Paramilitary Weapons And Explosives

EDM number 743 in 1994-95, proposed by Harry Barnes on 07/03/1995.

That this House firmly recognises that there has to be substantial progress on key issues such as the decommissioning of arms, the ending of 'punishment' beatings and the removal of the forced exclusion of people from Northern Ireland by paramilitary groups, in preparatory talks between Government officials and representatives of both Sinn Fein and the groups in contact with loyalist paramilitaries, before bilateral talks with ministers or all-party talks can commence; notes the unwillingness of the provisional IRA to hand over its illegitimate stocks of weapons and explosives to either the British or Irish governments; would, therefore, welcome prop osals and discussions on the role of third parties or an independent international commission to tackle the decommissioning issue; and further believes that it would be a helpful gesture if the provisional IRA were to reveal where any remaining and potentially deadly explosive devices are still hidden, such as the one recently discovered in the Dillons bookshop in Oxford.

This motion has been signed by a total of 14 MPs.