The last 12 months, in particular, have witnessed changes and developments on a scale which was truly impressive and which, five years ago, might even have been regarded as unrealistically ambitious. We had two acts of arms decommissioning by the IRA duly verified by the independent international commission on decommissioning, the second of which involved a substantial and varied quantity of arms being put permanently beyond use. Regrettably, the IRA's initiative in this key area was not matched by parallel moves on the loyalist side.