Governments' view: Minister for Justice Michael McDowell kept the issue of IRA disbandment on the agenda yesterday as the British and Irish governments stressed their commitment to the full restoration of Northern Ireland's suspended political institutions.
In a communiqué following yesterday's meeting of the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference in London, the two governments welcomed the eighth IMC report and its confirmation that "PIRA paramilitary activity has ceased since 28 July and that the PIRA leadership has taken the strategic decision to end its armed campaign and pursue the political path".
The conference also expressed concern about the "reports of continued criminal activity and intelligence-gathering and stressed that these issues must continue to be addressed".
However, Mr McDowell was more specific at a morning press conference following publication of an IMC report which concluded that "money has become a key strategic asset" for PIRA; that senior members of PIRA "are involved in money-laundering and other crime"; that the leadership appeared to have sanctioned some criminal activities "such as the exploitation of financial assets PIRA had previously acquired or the illegal gathering of intelligence"; and that PIRA "appears to retain long-term intentions to gather intelligence".
Asked if he was confident that the IRA was ending criminal activity, Mr McDowell said he was convinced that the IRA leadership had "taken the strategic decision to end their campaign of terrorism". However, that left unresolved whether they were "going to end their existence as an organic body", as well as continuing offences involving the laundering of money and the handling of criminal assets.
Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain insisted that the IMC report, while not allowing the immediate restoration of a power-sharing government, did lay the basis for a "process of genuine and purposeful engagement" between the political parties, due to begin next week.
This was a "positive report that shows the IRA is moving in the right direction: no murders, no recruitment, no bank robberies". Compared to where the IRA was, he said, "there has been a sea change".
Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern said that the two governments would not ignore reports of intelligence-gathering. He insisted that "politics must mean activism and argument alone". The IMC report, he said, raised challenges to the IRA leadership in relation to this and the outstanding issue of criminality, which must cease so as to allow partnership politics to take place.
Secondly, Mr Ahern said, the report challenged loyalist paramilitaries to follow the path set by the IRA in its significant moves last July. However, the report also challenged both governments and the political parties in the North to "reassert the primacy of politics" and engage with others.
Any hopes the two governments had of an early DUP/Sinn Féin engagement were dashed last night when the Rev Ian Paisley claimed that yesterday's report proved that the DUP was "right to rule out executive devolution".
Dr Paisley's ever-tougher language follows his indication last week to The Irish Times that he does not plan to meet British Prime Minister Tony Blair's timetable for the restoration of devolution and comes ahead of this weekend's DUP conference, when some delegates are expected to call on the party leadership to close off the option of power-sharing with Sinn Féin.
In the Commons yesterday, Mr Blair told Dr Paisley that the ending of all criminal activity remained "absolutely crucial" to making political progress, but that he would be wrong to suggest very significant progress had not been made or that last July's IRA statement was not highly significant.
SDLP leader Mark Durkan echoed that, saying: "The IMC report shows that positive progress has been made in a number of areas. The DUP need to acknowledge that. It is an important step forward. But, equally, Sinn Féin has to acknowledge the areas where the IRA is still in business. Any continued IRA activity only plays into the hands of the DUP and those opposed to change. It damages trust and makes it harder to get the agreement up and running again."
Conservative spokesman David Lidington said: "I welcome the evidence from the commission of a further shift in the right direction. But we still await proof that those moves are permanent and irreversible."