The Provisional IRA has "without doubt" completely abandoned all crime, the Garda Commissioner has said at a cross-Border meeting of law enforcers and government officials.
Noel Conroy, asked for his assessment of last week's Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) report on paramilitary activity, said: "Our information, and indeed our investigations, suggest to us quite strongly that the Provisional IRA in particular have gone away from the whole area of organised crime."
He told The Irish Times: "That is not to say that some people who have been involved in crime . . . have actually walked away from crime. We know from our intelligence and from our work on the ground that, as an organisation and particularly in relation to southern Ireland, I can say without doubt [the Provisionals] are totally away from all that area."
Accompanied by PSNI chief constable Sir Hugh Orde and the North's policing minister, Paul Goggins, he said: "I will qualify that by saying there are people who have been associated with the Provisional IRA who still get involved in criminal activity."
Sir Hugh said the question of IRA criminality was "very difficult territory".
"I've referred to this as a grey area in crime," he said.
"It's always going to have to be a judgment call - are people committing crime for their own ends or for paramilitary organisations? And if they are, what level of authority, has been given, if any?"
He added: "The IMC report has my 100 per cent support. I think it is an accurate reflection of where we are. If things are moving in the right direction I think that's the important point."
The Garda Commissioner also praised the latest IMC findings without qualification. "I concur totally," he said.
The remarks follow fresh accusations from the Rev Ian Paisley that northern secretary Peter Hain was deceiving the public in relation to the latest IMC findings on IRA criminality.
Following a meeting with the IMC yesterday in Belfast he said: "We were quite amazed at [ the IMC members'] forthrightness as we cross-examined them on their report.
"It's quite clear their interpretation of the report and their comments are nothing like what the secretary of state has been selling to the people. In fact, he has been selling to the people deceit as far as the report is concerned."
Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams said that if the DUP leader was unhappy with Mr Hain, then he could become First Minister in a powersharing arrangement with republicans and assume political power himself.
The two police chiefs were joined in Co Derry for a two-day meeting on crime throughout both jurisdictions attended by the Criminal Assets Bureau and its Northern equivalent, the Assets Recovery Agency.