RIR controversy 'sharpens divisions'

By Mark Devenport BBC Northern Ireland political editor

It is more than a month since rumours started circulating that proposals to reduce troop levels, contained in the British and Irish joint declaration, could call into question the future of home battalions of the Royal Irish Regiment.

Now confirmation has come in the shape of a memo from the General Officer Commanding (GOC) the Army in Northern Ireland, Lt General Phillip Trousdell.

He sought to spell out the implications of the government's plan for troop numbers to fall to 5,000 in peacetime conditions.

Government sources say no cuts before acts of completion

The GOC said the purpose of the RIR's three locally-based battalions would end when Operation Banner came to a close.

"Banner" is military jargon for the Army's role in providing support for the police to deal with the paramilitary threat in Northern Ireland.

Until a re-organisation of the regimental structure within the Army in 1992, the soldiers of the three home battalions had an independent existence as the Ulster Defence Regiment.

As a mixture of part-timers and full-timers, mainly recruited from and living within the community in Northern Ireland, the fate of the RIR soldiers was always going to have greater political and emotional implications than the deployment of any other military unit.

His assault on the declaration and his scorn for those who rely on private promises from the government add up to a thinly veiled critique of his own leader's stewardship

Unionists saw the merger of the Ulster Defence Regiment with the Royal Irish Rangers 11 years ago, as part of a process of government capitulation to nationalist pressure.

They smelled a rat again when accusations were levelled at an RIR figurehead, Colonel Tim Collins, over his conduct in Iraq.

Then the GOC's memo questioning the future of the home battalions guaranteed a furious response.

UUP leader David Trimble cried foul. He said he had received a promise from the director of security at the Northern Ireland Office that the future of the RIR's home battalions would be secure.

However, the controversy has not just soured relations between the Ulster Unionist leader and the government.

It has also served to sharpen the pre-existing internal divisions within Ulster Unionism.

David Trimble said he had received a promise over future of RIR

It has provided Jeffrey Donaldson and his supporters with an extra reason to formally request another meeting of the Ulster Unionist ruling council.

Despite his party leader urging him to drop his demand for the meeting, Mr Donaldson has pressed ahead. It will now take place on Monday 16 June.

Although Mr Donaldson sees the fate of the RIR as an added cause for complaint, he is mounting a broad attack on the proposals linked to the recent British-Irish declaration.

The Lagan Valley MP regards the plans for allowing on-the-run paramilitaries to return home, and for appointing Irish and American officials to a body overseeing paramilitary-related violence, as counter to key unionist principles.

Mr Donaldson argues that his concerns are about policies, not personalities.

However, his assault on the declaration and his scorn for those who rely on private promises from the government add up to a thinly veiled critique of his own leader's stewardship of the process.

Mr Donaldson senses that the threat to the RIR will finally swing the balance of power on the Ulster Unionist Council his way.

His threat to consider his position within the party if the vote does not go his way, made on BBC Radio Ulster's Inside Politics, has raised the stakes in a very deliberate way.

Government officials indicate there is little they can give Mr Trimble on the future of the RIR.

With Mr Donaldson characterising the council meeting as a "defining moment" for Ulster Unionism, we could soon all be living - as the old Chinese proverb puts it - in interesting times.

And they come just a matter of weeks after the government postponed the assembly elections with the aim, in large part, of shoring up pro-Agreement unionism.

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The joint declaration between British and Irish Governments
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