IRA still recruiting
The latest Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) report has concluded that the IRA is continuing to train and recruit members and gather intelligence.
In a report that will do little to revive the floundering Good Friday agreement, the watchdog blames the paramilitary group for the Northern Bank heist and the murder of Robert McCartney.
However, Sinn Fein has been quick to dismiss the report as having “little or no credibility and is neither impartial, fair nor balanced”.
Today’s report claims the IRA “continues to seek to maintain its medium term effectiveness” by recruiting and training new members, including in the use of firearms and explosives.
It says the group also remains “heavily engaged in organised crime” and has a “sophisticated use of money laundering as a means of securing long term the proceeds of serious crime”.
The IMC blames IRA members for the murder of Belfast father-of-two McCartney and while saying it does not believe the IRA leadership sanctioned the killing in advance, its subsequent actions “put the organisation and its members ahead of justice”.
“We believe that provisional IRA is at present determined to maintain its effectiveness, both in terms of organised crime, control in republican areas and the potential for terrorism,” it concludes.
Democratic Unionist Party negotiator Nigel Dodds described the IMC’s report as a “damning indictment” of the IRA’s continuing criminal activity and said it was a “further vindication” of the DUP’s refusal to share power with Sinn Fein.
“Anyone who thinks that Sinn Fein can be brought into government any time soon should read this report in detail and see just how deeply ingrained in the Provisional movement the whole litany of paramilitary and criminal activity is,” he said.
However, Sinn Fein assembly member for South Belfast Alex Maskey has been quick to condemn the IMC as the “the tool of the British securocrats” and unionists.
“This report like the previous reports is based solely on the information provided to the IMC by the securocrats. It like previous reports has little or no credibility and is neither impartial, fair nor balanced,” he said.
Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain tried to distance himself from the political wrangling, saying only: “The latest IMC report presents a disturbing picture in relation to the ongoing criminal activity of paramilitary groups, both loyalist and republican.”
David Lidington, Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, said that the report showed how far the republican movement still had to come.
“The IMC paints a vivid picture of an organisation that is still recruiting and training, and is up to its neck in a whole range of criminal activities.
“Until all such activities end for good there can be no question of Sinn Fein Ministers sitting in a power-sharing government at Stormont.”
