Peace process being jeopardised by 'hoods' within IRA, claims Trimble

Recent attempts by the British and Irish governments to restart the stalled Northern Ireland peace process are now "dead" and the whole issue should be parked until the autumn, David Trimble, the Ulster Unionist leader, said yesterday.

In his most outspoken comments yet on prospects for a breakthrough, Mr Trimble said that the process was being held up by a "couple of hundred hoods" in the IRA.

Mr Trimble, speaking in an interview to mark five years since the Good Friday Agreement, said the political process was in danger of "crashing" again if the British Government continued to "drift".

When asked if the process was dead, he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "What is dead is the attempts being made by the Government over the course of the last month or two to see if there is a basis in which the Assembly can be reformed. That huge effort involving the British Government, the Irish government, with the US government ... in support, that has failed."

The IRA has sent a statement to the British and Irish governments which the Sinn Fein president, Gerry Adams, has insisted "clear and unambiguous" and unparalleled in its significance.

But Mr Trimble said republicans had not delivered what was expected of them and hinted that the structure of the Assembly should be overhauled by Downing Street.

"It is now time to address some of the fundamental issues that arise out of the failure of the republican leadership. How is the Assembly going to function? Is it going to stay completely there in suspense? Because if it is, what on earth are we doing conducting an election? If we are conducting an election, how is it going to function because what's the point of an election to something that doesn't function? The Government needs to think about that and produce an answer very, very quickly."

Mr Trimble added that voters had to know before they went to the polls next month exactly what sort of body they were voting for. The hardliners in the IRA were mostly to blame for the impasse, he said.

"What we've got is a couple of hundred people who don't want to give up the old ways and who still benefit from the old ways, particularly in terms of racketeering. If we see it as being just the problem of a couple of hundred hoods, I think we see the way forward more clearly," he said.

Tony Blair and his Irish counterpart, Bertie Ahern, will continue contacts with republicans next week in an apparent effort to get them to spell out more clearly exactly what they have on offer. The governments' declaration of a route-map to get devolution restored was to due to have been delivered on Thursday.