Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

The Villiers report brings into the open what most people already know, namely, that all the main paramilitary organisations which operated during the Troubles still exist. The report was commissioned in the aftermath of the killing of Kevin McGuigan in east Belfast on 13 August and of Jock Davison in the markets in June. The Anti Austerity Alliance and the Socialist Party condemn both murders, just as we stood opposed to the murderous campaign of all paramilitary groups and of killings carried out by the state in the past. The aforementioned murders would likely have quickly slipped out of the headlines but for the announcement of the Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, PSNI, on 22 August that he believes the Provisional IRA still exists and that its members were involved in Kevin McGuigan's murder. His statement confirmed what most working class people in the North believe, namely, that paramilitary groups still exist and still prey on the most deprived and neglected communities. Of course, this is not just a question of republican groups. The loyalist UDA was almost certainly responsible for the murder of Brian McIlhagga in Ballymoney in January this year. In June, Derry man, Paul McCauley, died nine years after being assaulted at a family barbecue, for which again the UDA is thought to be responsible. Recently, the UDA, allegedly, crucified one of its victims, nailing him to a table. The loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force also remains active. Last year, it repeatedly shot Jemma McGrath in east Belfast, in an attempt to kill her. On top of this, the various dissident republican groups continue with their dead-end campaigns.

There is a punishment shooting or beating every third day in the North. There have been 600 recorded sectarian so-called incidents at the peace lines over the last year alone. The Villiers report states that the main paramilitary groups and their leaderships are committed to peace and acting to restrain and manage members of their organisations. This approach is not dissimilar to the famous words of former British Home Secretary, Reginald Maudling, who in the early years of the Troubles said he would settle for achieving an acceptable level of violence. Today, the British state has effectively settled for an acceptable level of violence and the existence of paramilitaries as long as these organisations do not pose any threat to stability and are focused on carving up and controlling working class communities as part of the peace process. Catholic and Protestant working class people should not have to settle for an acceptable level of violence, which is maintained by dozens of permanent so-called peacelines, thousands of armed police and the local enforcement activities of paramilitary groups interested primarily in control of their areas.

It should be remembered that in a period of relative peace, 150 people have died since 1998. Between 2001 and 2012, there were more than 1,500 shooting incidents and more than 1,000 bombing incidents. Even if yet another agreement is cobbled together, it will not deal in any fundamental way with the paramilitary control over working class communities. Only one force is capable of pushing the paramilitaries to one side and ultimately breaking their grip. That force is a united and organised working class. Working people are united in their trade unions and on many occasions have followed a union lead to strike and demonstrate against sectarianism and the paramilitaries. One of the hidden stories of the Troubles and the peace process is the role of trade unionists in confronting paramilitary and sectarian killings on a number of occasions. For example, in March 1989 when socialists and the Mid-Ulster Trades Council called for strike action following the murder of three Protestants by the IRA, workers from the Unipork factory and others responded in their hundreds. When Maurice O'Kane, a Catholic welder, was murdered by the UVF in Harland and Wolff in 1994 shops stewards immediately called thousands of workers out and left the shipyard empty. There are countless of other examples which show the power of ordinary people and the power of the trade unions to take on sectarian forces. Today they could and should organise against paramilitary racketeering and intimidation.

We can have no confidence in sectarian parties, paramilitary organisations or the British and Irish Governments to maintain an acceptable level of violence indefinitely. A peace process based on sectarian forces is one riddled with crisis and division that will pave the road back to conflict. An alternative agreement must be built, based not on the coming together of sectarian leaders at the top of society but of ordinary working class communities coming together in the spirit of solidarity and prepared to find a solution based on compromise to the issues that divide communities. The building of a new type of politics, the politics of a united workers movement, is necessary for this to happen. This means building a new party of working people. A new generation born since the ceasefire of 1994 will make this happen. Young people in the North are fed up with austerity, living in a socially backward state and with being imprisoned in Northern Ireland's past. They are rightly impatient to live in a society where they have the right to live in peace, free from intimidation, division and bigotry. The sectarian parties have failed to resolve the problems of poverty and division that face ordinary people. It is time to build a movement that will solve those key issues.

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