IRA denies recent reports of major resignations

The IRA has denied recent reports of major resignations from the paramilitary grouping. The IRA remains "intact, united and committed", the current edition of the republican weekly, An Phoblacht, reported yesterday.

The publication quoted an IRA source as describing reports of splits within the paramilitary body as "fanciful". On a page featuring a montage of different newspaper headlines citing reports of a rift within the organisation, the IRA described these reports as "greatly exaggerated".

"Those who are set on promoting division or a split within the IRA will themselves be disappointed to learn that the IRA remains intact, united and committed," according to the IRA source in An Phoblacht.

The IRA figure stated that any impact on the IRA of a "small number of resignations should be viewed in the context of years of struggle". He said that during a sustained period of conflict it was "perhaps inevitable that individual personnel" will change for a number of reasons at different times.

The paper reported: "Some people may leave for personal or political reasons and many more have been imprisoned. Hundreds of IRA volunteers have been captured and jailed by the British without undermining the army's ability to sustain itself. Taken in this context a few resignations are not significant, the source maintained. The IRA as an organisation remains intact."

The IRA member said that the resignations were regrettable. He expressed disappointment "that some of those who left made their action known publicly and, albeit unwittingly, have fed into the agenda of those who wish to split the organisation".

An Phoblacht also quotes the Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, as stating that "whatever is happening within the IRA it has shown itself to be a cohesive body. It has certain credibility and therefore when it gives its views of events I believe that the wider world has to listen. I think that the IRA is bigger than any individual or number of individuals".

Mr Adams told The Irish Times yesterday in relation to a claim by dissident republicans that 35 IRA members had resigned from the IRA in south Armagh he knew of no such resignations. No such reports had come to him either directly or through "the grapevine". He said there would be no point in his denying such claims because if they were true they would inevitably emerge publicly.

Meanwhile, Sinn Fein's chief negotiator, Mr Martin McGuinness, has set off on a three-day visit to Boston. He last night attended an America Ireland Fund dinner, and will fulfil a number of speaking engagements including an address to the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.