Issuing her long-awaited statement on the IRA ceasefire, the Northern Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam, yesterday acknowledged the IRA had breached its ceasefire in recent weeks but said she had chosen not to impose sanctions on the organisation by halting prisoner releases.
Dr Mowlam said she accepted security advice which indicated that members of the Provisional IRA killed Mr Charles Bennett in west Belfast last month, and that its members were also involved in the Florida-based gun-smuggling operation.
However, she said that after taking all factors into account she believed the IRA ceasefire had not broken down at this time. She stressed that the group's position would be kept under review and she would not hesitate to act in the future.
"Although the situation in relation to the IRA was deeply worrying, I do not believe that there is a sufficient basis to conclude that the IRA ceasefire has broken down. Nor do I believe that it is disintegrating, or that these events represent a decision by the organisation to return to violence," she said in her statement.
Speaking at a news conference, Dr Mowlam stressed that with these incidents the IRA had come very close to breaking its ceasefire, and she was showing the yellow card "very firmly".
"I have listened carefully, and my judgment this time is that the ceasefire has not broken down. But let me make it equally clear that we have sailed very close to the wind this time. It was not an easy judgment, and they ought not to misunderstand the message."
She said it had taken her over a week to issue the statement because she wished to look at all available information to make sure the decision was rational and sensible.
"But I have to tell you that it wasn't easy, and they should be well aware how close they came to being specified," she said.
Dr Mowlam had come under increasing pressure to issue her statement after the RUC Chief Constable, Sir Ronnie Flanagan, said in a programme screened on Wednesday night that the IRA had killed Mr Bennett.
On Monday Dr Mowlam publicly corrected the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Andrews, when he said the two governments were in agreement that the IRA ceasefire was intact. She said then she was seeking further information from the US and the Republic.
Yesterday she said that intelligence confirmed that the IRA had acted in a "counterproductive and unhelpful" way.
"I'm accepting that the IRA were involved in the Bennett murder, in the gun procurement, very clearly. Sir Ronnie has made that clear and I accept that. I then have to make a separate judgment in relation to the Sentences Act. And in relation to that, close though it has been, difficult though it has been, I am arguing that the ceasefire has not broken down," she reiterated.
Dr Mowlam reviews the continuing early release of prisoners under the Sentences Act, 1998, and she said yesterday that under the criteria in the Act the IRA ceasefire was holding.
"There is no example of organised violence. There is no disintegrating of that ceasefire."
She added: "People often say to me that the dogs in the street know that the IRA are involved. I've made it very clear that they are. But the dogs in the street also know that the ceasefire has not broken down.
"My definition of ceasefire is the full criteria of the Sentences Act, and I make a judgment in relation to that. Equally, I'm saying that any violence is not condoned, utterly appalling, and we will not accept that."
According to the Sentences Act, organisations that have not established or are not maintaining a "complete and unequivocal ceasefire" are not eligible to participate in the early-release scheme.
Section Three of the Act says that to participate in the scheme a group must be deemed to have "ceased to be involved in any acts of violence or of preparation for violence".
Dr Mowlam yesterday insisted that her decision was not politically motivated but was based on the security advice given to her by Sir Ronnie Flanagan, and the commander of the British Army in Northern Ireland, Lieut Gen Sir Hew Pike.
"Politics enters everything in Northern Ireland. It would be naive to suggest anything different," she said. "But the decision was made on the basis of security advice, not on the basis of politics, from whoever it comes."
She said the political parties would respond to the statement as they saw fit. "But I have made the best judgment I can with the information I have been given."