The Sinn Féin Ard Comhairle will decide at a meeting in Dublin tomorrow whether to mount a legal challenge to the decision by the North's First Minister, David Trimble, to ban the party's two ministers from attending North-South ministerial meetings. The meeting will also discuss a range of other responses. The Sinn Féin President, Gerry Adams, will meet the Taoiseach tomorrow evening.
Earlier today the international arms inspectors, Cyril Ramaphosa and Marttii Ahtisaari, said that they had formed a distinct impression that the IRA was serious about the peace process after confirming that the weapons they recently saw in IRA arms dumps had not been tampered with. The arms inspectors said that in recent days they had seen substantial IRA weapons dumps which contained a variety of military equipment including explosives. The inspectors said that they had been able to utilise tried and tested methods of carrying out the inspections and as a result they said they were able to establish that the arms dumps had remained secure and untampered with since their first inspection last May.
The inspectors said that they had no way of knowing where the dumps are but were sure nothing in them had been used in the interim. The inspectors also dismissed out of hand allegations from anti-Agreement Unionists who had claimed that the weapons they had seen in May had been old and "past their sell-by date". In response Mr Ahtisaari said "when we say the things in these substantial arms dumps are usable, they are usable".
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Brian Cowen, welcomed the declaration by the international arms inspectors that the IRA is committed to the peace process. He was speaking on RTÉ television from London, where he met the Northern Secretary, Peter Mandelson.
Meanwhile, the Ulster Unionist MP, Ken Maginnis, has had what he described as a good and helpful meeting with the Taoiseach in Dublin. Speaking afterwards, he said that he was quite pleased with what he heard today from Mr Ahtisaari and Mr Ramaphosa; he said they had made it clear that suggestions they had seen only rusty guns were not true. He also said he had no concern about tomorrow's meeting between the Minister for Health, Mícheal Martin, and his Northern counterpart, Bairbre de Brún; he added, however, that he did not want to see it substituted for part of process.
