IT is completely understandable that there is widespread concern about the future of our Stormont structures, with growing fears that the increasingly bitter exchanges between the main parties could eventually result in the final collapse of devolution.
However, in the middle of all the pessimism, it is important to remember that there is a bigger picture, and our society has been fundamentally transformed since the era when murder was virtually an everyday event.
There have been no deaths across the north so far in 2025 which could be regarded as security related, and, if the pattern remains the same for just over two weeks, this year will go down as the first in almost six decades to pass without a single killing which could be linked in any way to politics.
The position was confirmed by assistant chief constable Davy Beck at a meeting of the Policing Board last week when he also said that assaults carried out by paramilitary groups “are at the lowest level in over 40 years”.
Many Irish News readers will still have vivid memories of 1972, the worst year of the Troubles, when almost 500 people died, with thousands more injured, so the change has been dramatic.
Fatalities remained common up to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 and beyond, but a new generation has since been able grow up with the risk of political violence at a consistently low level.
We have plainly yet to reach a stage when all the remaining paramilitary groups on both sides finally disband, and there can only be deep alarm over the number of incidents involving pipe bombs and guns which could easily have resulted in deaths over the last year.
The official police assessment is that the paramilitary threat remains substantial, meaning that an attack is likely, and there have also been disturbing indications that extreme right wing elements have access to weaponry.
There is no place for any of these organisations in the Ireland of 2025, and those who do not voluntarily leave the stage must accept that they face the prospect of lengthy prison sentences if they maintain their activities.
It is reasonable to encourage the transition of paramilitary figures towards exclusively peaceful roles, but it needs to be stressed to loyalists in particular that this is not an open-ended process.
Enough time and indeed money has already been invested in attempts to persuade certain groups that the days when they were associated with protection rackets and drug dealing are over.
We have been firmly in a new dispensation for some time and the rule of law and order must prevail.
