Britain Plans Laws to Curb IRA Terrorism, Financing, Political Help

The British government proposed laws Thursday to stiffen prison sentences for terrorism, make it harder for the IRA to finance operations and require candidates in Northern Ireland elections to disavow violence.

The measures were presented to Parliament the day after a man and his granddaughter were killed in a bungled Irish Republican Army bombing in Northern Ireland. The measures are virtually certain to pass in the 650-member House of Commons, where Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher has a huge 101-seat majority.

Her government suggested the anti-violence oath last year as a means of undermining the outlawed IRA’s legal political wing, Sinn Fein, in its attempt to win political legitimacy.

At the heart of Sinn Fein ideology is support for what it calls the IRA “armed struggle” and the government calls terrorism.

Sinn Fein commands about one-third of the Roman Catholic vote in the troubled province.

10% Back Violence

At a news conference, a British government official said 10% of the 650 local councilors in Northern Ireland openly support the violence that has claimed nearly 3,000 lives in the last 20 years.

“It is intolerable to everyone who believes in freedom expressed through the ballot box that any elected councilor . . . can openly advocate violence as a means of achieving his political objectives,” said Richard Needham, who is responsible for local government in the province.

“There’s nothing that we’re trying to do here to stop people standing at elections or to actually preclude a particular political party,” Needham said.

Prosecution, Removal

The law would permit prosecution and even removal of councilors who publicly support the IRA’s violent campaign to drive the British from Protestant-dominated Northern Ireland and unite it with the Irish Republic, which is overwhelmingly Catholic.

Sinn Fein has said it will find a way around the “declaration against terrorism,” which would apply to local government and provincial assembly contests. It will probably take effect before next May’s municipal elections.

An elected official who took the oath and then voiced support for the outlawed IRA could be disqualified from office for five years after successful prosecution.

Although it applies to all candidates, the oath is designed primarily as a weapon for Protestant council members, who object to serving with IRA supporters.

Under the proposed law, a court could disqualify a council member “if his words or actions could reasonably be understood as expressing support for, or approval of” terrorism or the activities of a banned organization.

The law on terrorists’ prison sentences would require a prisoner to serve two-thirds of his time instead of being eligible for parole at midpoint in his term, as under current law. The Northern Ireland Office says one-fifth of security offenders released in 1984 committed a new terrorist offense within two years.

Provisions of the third measure limit banking secrecy and empower courts to seize funds believed to be earned from racketeering related to terrorism.

Last month, Britain banned broadcast interviews with members of the IRA and 10 other militant Northern Ireland groups, Catholic and Protestant. The government also plans to end the right of suspects to remain silent under police interrogation.

On Wednesday night, an IRA bomb meant to blow up a police station killed a 67-year-old Catholic man and his granddaughter, 13, and wounded eight other civilians.

In a statement claiming responsibility, the IRA called the deaths of Barney Lavery and Emma Donnelly “tragic.”

Police said Lavery had taken Emma out for an evening of bingo and stopped his car to pick up an elderly pedestrian when the bomb exploded outside the part-time police station in Benburb, 35 miles west of Belfast.