PETER Robinson has warned his republican partners in government “to get in line with the programme before they unravel it any further” as the rift between the DUP and Sinn Fein continues.
In a speech to party members in Co Antrim on Friday night, the First Minister launched a scathing attack on Sinn Fein, hitting back at comments from their party chairman Declan Kearney earlier in the week.
He dismissed republican calls for reconciliation as synthetic, saying they had no intention of telling the truth about IRA murders.
The DUP leader said Mr Kearney had delivered his speech with “all the venom and invective that was apparent at the height of the conflict”.
“Perhaps “reconciliation” is Gaelic word for “vitriol,” he told party members.
“If Mr Kearney has the temerity to describe his speech as reconciliation then I suspect he would regard a knee capping as physiotherapy.” he added.
Tensions between the two parties arose when Peter Robinson hit out at Sinn Fein’s bid to stall the Welfare Reform bill in Stormont. He said the republican party were looking over their shoulders at the SDLP.
The row appeared to develop into a tit-for-tat when Declan Kearney delivered a stinging reposte on Wednesday night, claiming the DUP were trapped in a ‘time-warp’ and said Mr Robinson could not be “a latter day James Craig”.
Last night, in a lengthy address to DUP councillors, Mr Robinson said he would not be silenced and raised the past deeds of republicans in the Troubles.
He also said some “within unionism are still unable and unwilling to admit they got it wrong”.
“If republicans genuinely want the truth to be told let Gerry Adams admit he was in the IRA. Let him disclose he was in its leadership.
“Let republicans confess responsibility for the Northern Bank robbery and let Sinn Fein leaders who have been named for involvement in terrorism by their former IRA colleagues come clean.
“Let the IRA give details of the multitude of murders and attacks they engaged in and then come and talk to us about setting up a truth commission.”
Mr Robinson also pointed to the recent controversy surrounding the call for the release of Gerry McGeough and the Mary McArdle appointment.
“We will not allow republicans through selective public enquiries, and the repetition of false accounts of the past to wash the blood off their hands.
“We saw the real Sinn Fein priorities when they appointed Mary McArdle as a special advisor despite the obvious pain and trauma it caused to those surviving members of the Magistrate Tom Travers’ family.
“We saw it again when they ganged up to call for the release from prison of convicted terrorist Gerry McGeough who shot Sammy Brush our DUP Council colleague in Dungannon.
“A more decent man than Sammy you would be pushed to find yet he had to sit in the Council Chamber while Sinn Fein Councillors, he is expected to work with every week, sided with his would-be murderer.”
He emphasised that the “IRA that killed more Catholics than the security forces”; “the IRA killed three times as many people as all loyalist paramilitary organisations combined,” and added: “though you wouldn’t know it to look at the list of costly public enquiries, the IRA murdered nearly five times the number of people who died in incidents involving the security forces”.
He claimed Declan Kearney had a ‘fundamental’ misunderstanding of unionists, and warned unionists against engaging in a debate with republicans over the past.
“We do not agree on the causes of past division and conflict,” Mr Robinson continued.
“Nor do we agree on Northern Ireland’s long-term constitutional future either, but we can work together in this generation with the other parties for all the people of Northern Ireland.
“The worst thing that unionists could do would be to allow Sinn Fein to draw us into a debate about the past that we have long since won and which they are now trying to reinvent.
“We must focus on the urgent demands of dealing with the many problems our society is facing today.”
He also used his speech to once again attack what he claims is Sinn Fein’s insecurity with the SDLP.
“They [Sinn Fein] find it difficult taking decisions if they might prove unpopular.
“The SDLP only has to cough and Sinn Fein goes down with pneumonia.”
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