FORMER PROVISIONAL IRA (PIRA) members are assisting dissident republicans in their opposition to the peace process, the ceasefire watchdog established by the British and Irish governments has reported.
The Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) said “a small number of former PIRA have given assistance to dissident republicans. This is not surprising following the dissolution of PIRA’s structures.”
Speaking in Belfast yesterday, the four-member commission said the “assistance” took the form of advice and verbal support and not the supply of “kit and equipment”.
The commission’s 22nd report on paramilitary activity, covering the six months to August, said the dissident threat was at a six-year high, but it also emphasised a number of positive developments.
These included loyalist weapons decommissioning, the continuation of the Provisional IRA’s “political course” and greater community backing for the police.
They emphasised that political progress on the devolution from London of policing and justice powers could be a “potent intervention” in the fight against dissident activity.
“This would not be because the dissidents would be impressed by it,” the report said. “It would be because policing and justice would no longer be a point of contention across the political divide; rather, it would be a platform for co-operation against those trying to undermine the peace process.”
The two governments remain strongly supportive of the transfer of justice powers to Stormont along with the SDLP, Alliance and Sinn Féin.
Northern Secretary Shaun Woodward said: “It is for the Assembly to ask for those powers to be transferred and today’s IMC report should be hugely influential in informing an early decision.”
Traditional Unionist leader Jim Allister dismissed the IMC’s link between policing and justice devolution and dissident activity as “phoney”, while DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds stressed his party’s cautious approach to the transfer of powers.
“We will continue to press ahead, however, in ensuring there is community confidence prior to any transfer of these sensitive powers,” Mr Dodds said.
IMC member John Grieve, a former Scotland Yard officer, said the report was “a very mixed bag”. Citing the dissident threat, now at its highest since the IMC began monitoring in 2003, Mr Grieve also pointed to a rise in shootings and paramilitary assaults, a spate of bomb hoaxes and the influx of young and inexperienced members into dissident groups.
However, it was also pointed out that it was not so much the numbers of new recruits that led to higher levels of threat as the levels of expertise and capability of experienced paramilitaries that really counted.
Mr Grieve, former head of Scotland Yard’s anti-terror police, said dissident republicans, while still intent on mounting attacks in Britain, were “not going to unravel the peace process”.
The commission further reported that dissident factions remained unco-ordinated, operating like an array of splinter groups without any leadership coherence.
The commissioners praised the co-operation of loyalist groups with the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning in putting significant amounts of ammunition beyond use.