THE IRA's Easter declaration that it will "rid our country of a British government" and that it is "united, strong and steadfast in our determination to achieve our objectives" was not being interpreted yesterday as a sign that the organisation had entirely rejected the notion of another ceasefire, possibly in the near future.
Senior security figures in the Republic indicate that the elements within the IRA which led the movement towards the last ceasefire are still in place. The sources also believe that the political leadership of the organisation is again pushing for a ceasefire.
A ceasefire before the UK election could greatly help Sinn Fein in its political contest for domination of the nationalist electorate in Northern Ireland.
Despite some "successful" IRA operations in the past year, there are also clear signs that the organisation is far from being the "united, strong and steadfast" one it could once have claimed to be.
The IRA has lost equipment and members in considerable numbers since reembarking on its campaign of violence last February when it bombed Canary Wharf in London. Dozens of people have been arrested, many facing charges which could result in life imprisonment.
The sea change in public opinion in Northern Ireland during the 18 month ceasefire has also changed the environment in which the IRA has been operating.
According to security sources in the North, the RUC has been receiving an unprecedented number of "contacts from the nationalist community about IRA activity. This has contributed to the high levels of arms seizures and the interruption of a succession of IRA operations.
A decline in support fort IRA activity in the nationalist communities in the North has traditionally been seen as a sign that it is time to bring an armed campaign to an end.
Several years ago, a senior republican figure, commented that the IRA would call off its campaign only "when the women of the Falls Road threw its guns out on to the streets. This metaphorical scenario might not have been fully realised, but the flow of information to the RUC is a sign that support for IRA violence among nationalists has diminished.
The repeated interception of IRA attacks in Belfast led the organisation to issue an implied threat that it would kill people who "endangered" its members in this way.
According to security sources a number of key IRA figures who were active before the August 1994 ceasefire have never become fully active again. This could explain the clear lack of experience evident in some of the current IRA actions which have resulted in arrests and seizures of weapons.
There has been almost no IRA activity in the Border, rea since the campaign was restarted.
Aside from the killing of the British soldier, hit by a sniper bullet last month, south Armagh has seen relatively little activity. There are some suspicions locally that the IRA sniper who killed Lance Bombardier Stephen Restorick might be a woman.
The difficulties for the IRA in reasserting its military capacity, combined with its growing isolation, are said to have contributed to a growing feeling within the republican movement that the return to violence with the bombing of Canary Wharf was a mistake.
The principal indication that the organisation might again by considering a ceasefire is that the Adams/McGuinness political leadership has held strong in the face of attempts by militants to undermine it.
There had been suspicions, based on contacts with Irish officials, that Mr Adams and Mr McGuinness had lost support to the militarist tendency, particularly to hardline figures in the IRA leadership from Monaghan, Belfast and the south east of the Republic before the ending of the 18 month ceasefire.
However, the most recent assessment of that the Adams/ McGuinness position has again been strengthened by several factors. These are both internal, like the lack of military success, and external, like the shunning of the organisation by all but minor figures in the United States.
These factors have led to a renewed belief that the organisation could return to a ceasefire to maximise the political impact of a strong performance in the May 1st general election.