COMMUNITY workers in loyalist areas are set to break off contacts with republicans after their details turned up on IRA death lists. Loyalists now suspect that cross-community meetings were used as a cover for IRA intelligence-gathering.

The allegation is due to be made at a press conference on Belfast’s Shankill Road tomorrow. Details of IRA intelligence documents given to loyalist community workers by police will be made public to substantiate the claims.

One loyalist source said: “When your details turn up on a paramilitary list, the police tell you so that you can take precautions. In many cases the details recorded (in the IRA documents) can be traced back to conversations at cross-community meetings. It is not just happening in one or two cases, it is quite systematic.”

A Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) source confirmed that the IRA documents contained details linked to the meetings. He said: “In some cases it was clear from the files that something had been said at a meeting. In those cases, detectives asked the loyalists if they could remember who had been present.”

The officer confirmed that those under threat were given a letter outlining the danger in as much detail as possible.

The IRA files to which the police warnings refer were seized as part of last year’s “Stormontgate” spying investigation which led to the collapse of the power-sharing administration. The suggestion of systematic spying at community meetings, which are intended to ease tension, is likely to undermine unionist confidence further and could make it more difficult to revive the administration. Some nationalist and loyalist community workers are ex-prisoners with terrorist records. Their input was considered essential to easing hostilities at sectarian interfaces.

Last night Liam Maskey, a leading nationalist community worker in north Belfast, appealed for calm and dialogue. A brother of Alec Maskey, the Sinn Fein mayor of Belfast, he is not under any suspicion and has wide experience of cross-community work with loyalists.

Maskey said: “I would urge caution. Even if political problems are hot and heavy, we should go on working together. I will be shocked if people have a total block on cross community development.”

Asked about the spying allegations he said he was not aware of any of such activity. “Before I would comment I would need to see and hear the details,” he said. “However it would be seriously detrimental to long-term stability if cross-community dialogues stopped. It would be a waste of the time, energy and dedicated work that has taken place over the years if people were to lose those connections now.”

A loyalist community source said: “Some trust was growing up and now people feel violated. These republicans were the people who urged us to come and talk to them when there was very little contact but now that there has been contact and cordial relations we find that it has been abused.”

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