Ulster Unionist MEP Jim Nicholson says Northern Ireland and the many innocent victims of IRA atrocities will never be able to seriously deal with the past whilst Gerry Adams and his Sinn Fein colleagues, like Martin McGuinness, continue to deny their own dark and murky roles.

Mr Nicholson said:

"Why does Gerry Adams continue to deny being in a terrorist organisation which he has strongly eulogised and closely aligned himself with for four decades? Is he now finally ashamed of their murderous and genocidal actions?

"Ominously for Gerry Adams, the accusations against him are coming directly from former colleagues of his in the republican movement, republicans who would have known precisely what was going in subversive circles in Northern Ireland, particularly in Belfast, during the 1970s and 1980s.”

"Very few of his associates in republicanism at that time believe the Gerry Adams spin that he was never in the IRA.

"Indeed, some are readily breaking ranks to reveal who were involved and what went on in the violent, murky world of the Provisionals.

"His senior Sinn Fein colleague Martin McGuinness is also very reluctant to reveal the full details of his activities in the Provisional IRA, yet he audaciously and spuriously struts the wider stage as a paragon of peace and reasonableness."

"Northern Ireland and the many innocent victims of IRA atrocities will never be able to seriously deal with the past whilst Gerry Adams and his Sinn Fein colleagues, like Martin McGuinness, continue to deny their own dark and murky roles.

"Denials, made by Adams and McGuiness, merely insult the Northern Ireland public's intelligence and give full succour to the dissident republican terrorists of today."