The Fine Gael and Labour leaders yesterday welcomed the IMC's report that the IRA is sticking to its decision to end all activities, but expressed concern over ongoing IRA intelligence-gathering and the involvement of individual members in organised crime.
Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said he welcomed "the confirmation by the IMC that the IRA has made a strategic decision to end its armed campaign, and that it has not deviated from that position.
"However, the IMC report also includes a number of findings which suggest that the IRA is being somewhat selective in its fulfilment of the promises made last July to end all activities."
Organised crime and intelligence-gathering were "totally unacceptable, and must be ended if Sinn Féin wants to be treated as a fully democratic party".
He said the report also supported the case of the family of Joseph Rafferty, murdered in Dublin last year, "in that Sinn Féin did not do enough to prevent this murder despite having been aware of the threats to Mr Rafferty's life. Sinn Féin should now belatedly do the decent thing and ensure that the murderer in this case is brought to justice."
Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte said the implementation of the IRA's stated intention to end all activities "should be acknowledged and welcomed".
However, "ongoing reports of criminality, intelligence-gathering and the fact that the IRA has retained weaponry in particular demonstrate that there is still some way to go before Northern Ireland is a fully peaceful, lawful and democratic society".
The real sign that paramilitaries were giving up the gun and ending criminality "will come when Sinn Féin expresses its support for the PSNI and takes its place on the Policing Board".
He was concerned "at the report that the IRA has retained an unquantified amount of weapons [ a suggestion that is raised but not confirmed in the IMC report]. This totally undermines efforts to accept republicans as involved purely in democratic politics.
"Combined with the Cab raids on properties and businesses in Dublin today , this demonstrates that the IRA remains an illegitimate organisation deeply involved in criminality, and with the capacity to resort to violence at any stage."
He said the assessment of loyalists was "even gloomier".
"Little progress is being made within the UDA and UVF towards ending their thuggish and brutal activities, or ceding the control they exert over their communities."
Sinn Féin's leader in the Dáil Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin said Sinn Féin would publish a Bill today calling on the Irish Government to end its political backing and funding "for the discredited Independent Monitoring Commission".
That body was "a Frankenstein monster" created by the two governments to appease rejectionist unionists."
It was made up of "anti-republican cranks", and its reports were based on "nothing more than unsubstantiated allegations and innuendo from nameless securocrats within the British establishment".
