Statement by TUV vice-chair Keith Harbinson:

“Ian Paisley  Jur’s comments last night on the 5th anniversary of the Northern Bank robbery indicated just how far his party has shifted. Mr Paisley made it clear that he does not expect the perpetrators to ever be brought to justice.

“The question therefore arises of why his party is in government with those who everyone in Northern Ireland believes to have been responsible.

“Let’s just recall what Peter Robinson says about the matter in a statement still carried on the DUP leader’s own website. On the 14th October 2005 he said:

“While the IRA continue to possess funds from the Northern Bank robbery and other robberies they are, in actual fact, engaging in a continuing criminal offence and therefore are involved in on-going criminality. …
 
“So long as the IRA retains the £26.5 million they stole from the Northern Bank last December and the proceeds of numerous other armed robberies they were responsible for, then they are engaged in continuing criminal activity. …
 
“Just as our attitude to decommissioning was clear cut, there can be no question of accepting anything less than the complete, total and unequivocal ending of all paramilitary and criminal activity.  The requirement for all those who aspire to government must be a commitment to exclusively peaceful and democratic means.
 
“I welcome this week’s admission from the Secretary of State that those who have stolen money and are still in possession of it are “criminally culpable” and that the consequences of such action leads to the inescapable conclusion that the IRA is still continuing with criminality.”

“Let us recall too what Ian Paisley Jur’s father had to say about this issue. On the eve of the St Andrews Agreement Dr Paisley demanded the IRA hand over all its "ill-gotten gains" as proof of the republican commitment to law and order. This was a demand repeated by Dr Paisley and party colleagues before the last Assembly election.
 
“Once the election was over, however, the ill-gotten gains became the soon forgotten gains!
 
“The revelation that the IRA far from committing the “biggest theft of waste paper in history” as our then Chief Constable dismissed it got away with some six and a half million in untraceable notes which remain unaccounted for are yet another reminder of why Sinn Fein/IRA are totally unfit for government. And a particularly stark example of how the DUP changed their position on this fundamental issue.”