Any move towards decommissioning might well convince them that they had been conned by Gerry Adams and the others who reassured them that the IRA was disengaging and not surrendering.. NICHOLAS SCHOON

Environment Correspondent
Shell yesterday welcomed a Greenpeace apology for publicising a seriously mistaken estimate of the amount of oil left on board the Brent Spar.At the height of its successful campaign against the dumping at sea of Shell’s redundant oil storage buoy, Greenpeace claimed the Brent Spar could have more than 5,000 tons of oil still in its tanks. This is because of the widespread view that the crucial point is not the existence of the arms, but the existence of the intention to use them.Curiously, this view is also held by a number of senior security figures. This is because of a complex of political factors which, together with the fact that Ireland has no history of decommissioning, appear to make it next to impossible for republican leaders to attempt such a move.
Most people in political circles regard this as a source of regret, since in any society it is clearly preferable to take as many illegal arms as possible out of circulation.But from the start almost all nationalist representatives have been much more relaxed than the British government about the prospects of the guns not being handed over. It is hard to imagine another, younger woman being comfortable with Julia’s calm and mature beauty, her intimate knowledge of Richard, her importance in his life and all that they have been through together.

Yet both seem unperturbed by this potential threesome, convinced that they can remain lifelong friends. She has taught him such a lot, he says; above all, how to grow up.. Although many uncertainties surround the Irish peace process, observers in Ireland have been practically unanimous on one central point: that the IRA is unlikely to de-commission any of its weaponry in the foreseeable future, writes David McKittrick. But I hope to be godmother to Richard’s children.”It seems a strange, almost naive hope. If only we could have had children together, we’d never separate I know I shall miss her intelligence and maturity. We’ll never lose touch – after all we’ve been through together, I’m sure of that.”Julia says: “There’s a longing in me now to be with an older person It would be comforting to be with someone my own age.

“She’d better be rich because he’s got nothing – no house, no career, no money left.”Richard says: “Now that Julia’s approaching 60 she’s beginning to want to settle down and find an older man with whom to retire and enjoy a calmer life, while I am now more than ready to marry and start a family. Richard is running out of time and so am I – he’s got to hurry up or he’ll be an old father! I always feel like saying when we’re interviewed: are there any nice middle-class girls out there for Richard?” She laughs. We lost everything but the sense of justice.”Richard adds: “So many people told us ‘Give up, let it go, walk away and find another life.’ But we felt that until we could rebuild our own self-respect by standing up publicly and saying we were wronged, we couldn’t move on.”What happens now to their relationship?Julia says forthrightly: “We’ll go our separate ways when the case ends. It is a vagary of the legal system that if Richard and Julia’s award of pounds 77,500, plus a further claim for loss of Julia’s earnings, total less than Lloyds Bank’s counter-claim, they will be liable for their own and the bank’s costs – which would certainly bankrupt them.Yet they have no regrets. Julia says: “If we had sat down and thought about it we’d never have done it But the point came when we couldn’t turn back. I knew we would never recover our financial losses, but the principle drove us on We’ve been very isolated by all this.