A GROUP of priests from west Belfast told of their experiences in the area at a dinner in 1990 with British government officials.
The priests included the late Fr Matt Wallace, based on the Lower Falls, and unnamed clergy from Twinbrook and Ballymurphy.
According to newly-released state papers, they told Northern Ireland Office officials of the need for employment opportunities in Catholic west Belfast.
In his 'note for the record' in June 1990, Simon Marsh of the Political Affairs Division said they spoke of a "need to get away from a dependency culture".
On the Provisional IRA, the priests reportedly said the IRA was "less and less about the pursuit of political education and more about the maintenance of its position for financial gain".
They feared that, even if violence ended, they would be "left with a deep-rooted culture of criminal commerce".
On politics, the clerics said the SDLP had made little impact in west Belfast because of a lack of organisation and being a party of individuals.
"Joe Hendron was worthy but uninspiring. When the SDLP did well electorally, it was more by way of a rejection of Sinn Féin," it was reported.
Among young people, they felt there was "a real turning away from violence", but there was a need to tackle "the hardcore of glue-sniffing and joy-riding young people".
And they felt that in relation to the area's security forces, "the people were so hardened to their presence that they didn't care much one way or the other, though house searches were a point of sensitivity".
