Clegg: 'We Don't Want Full-Blown NI Crisis'

Nick Clegg has told Sky News the Government is urgently looking at a judicial inquiry into amnesties on IRA terrorists.

The Deputy Prime Minister said the Government wanted to avoid a "full-blown crisis" in Northern Ireland in the wake of the furore over the collapse of the trial of the Hyde Park bombing suspect John Downey.

Northern Ireland First Minister Peter Robinson on Wednesday threatened to resign unless the Government agreed to hold a public inquiry into the secret amnesty letters given to 187 Republican paramilitaries.

The Democratic Unionist Party leader set the deadline for the end of the day on Thursday.

He has requested the recall of the devolved Assembly to discuss the row and has claimed that the government deal that saw IRA terror suspects assured they would not be prosecuted also involved the granting of royal pardons.

Northern Ireland Secretary Theresa Villiers is to hold urgent talks with with Deputy First Minister, Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness in an attempt to try to prevent the collapse of the Stormont coalition between his party and the dominant Democratic Unionist Party. The two will meet at Stormont Castle.

Mr Clegg, who said he was aware of the letters "some months" ago, said: "It's a very serious issue. We are looking urgently at what Mr Robinson has said and demanded. We are obviously doing a very quick review of all the other letters in existence.

"We are urgently considering his view that there should be a sort of full inquiry. We don't want this to escalate into a full-blown political crisis in Northern Ireland however much we totally understand the strength of feeling around this and that is why during the course of the day we will of course seek to respond to a lot of the very strongly-held views expressed by Peter Robinson and others."

The case of Mr Downey, who is suspected of involvement in the 1982 Hyde Park bombing which killed four members of the Household Cavalry and seven of their horses, collapsed on Tuesday.

Mr Downey was told he would not be prosecuted because of a letter he had been sent by Northern Ireland police in 2007 despite an outstanding arrest warrant. 

Some 187 letters have been sent out as part of the peace process - 38 have been sent since the coalition came to power in 2010, although the applications were received before then, and the last was in December 2012.

Mr Robinson claims he had no knowledge of the letters, brokered in an apparently secret deal between Labour and Sinn Fein, sent to "On-The-Runs" and has called for them all to be rescinded.

When asked whether he thought it was strange that Mr Robinson did not know about the letter Mr Clegg said that it would have been better had there been "open discussions" about it.

Speaking on Wednesday, Mr Robinson said: "I have to say quite frankly that I am not prepared to be the First Minister of a government that is kept in the dark on matters that are relevant to what we are doing."

In an interview with Sky News the DUP leader also raised Royal Pardons, which he said had been used to grant IRA terror suspects an effective amnesty for offences.

He said: "It appears that we are not just dealing with on-the-runs who received letters, but we are also dealing with people who received the Royal Prerogative of Mercy – that indicates there were offences involved.

"So we are not talking just about people who it is believed that the police did not have sufficient evidence to make a prosecution stick – that makes it a very serious matter."

Sinn Fein has said that if the letters are rescinded then it will threaten the whole peace process leading to the Good Friday Agreement.

Defence Minister Anna Soubry, a former barrister, has warned there was no chance of a judicial review.

"You can't judicially review the decision," she said. "You can appeal it, the prosecution can appeal it. The Crown Prosecution Service has taken the view that these are not the right circumstances to appeal it."

:: Watch Sky News live on television, on Sky channel 501, Virgin Media channel 602, Freeview channel 82 and Freesat channel 202.

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