Report Contents: The IRA has remained almost entirely inactive since it said it would end all activity, but loyalists continue to attack, shoot, kill and trade drugs, according to the IMC report.
The report covers March-August 2005 which includes just one month since the IRA said on July 28th it would cease activity.
It says: "Initial signs following the PIRA statement are encouraging, but inevitably on this occasion the assessment we can make of the effect of the statement is rather limited."
During March-August there were five deaths, all the responsibility of loyalists. This includes the death in March of Stephen Nelson who was beaten in September 2004 by UDA members, and four men killed in the loyalist feud.
The report goes on: "Over the last six months period loyalist violence was considerably worse than republican: the number of shootings was higher by a factor of 9, and of assaults by a factor of over 2.5. We believe that in the same period, as we say in paragraph 3.15, PIRA undertook one shooting in early July (of somebody whom it had assaulted the previous March) and 10 assaults, of which 9 were before the statement and one shortly after, in early August. The victim in this last case was a PIRA member."
Overall the fall in injuries through shooting has continued. There are an average of 1.5 shooting victims per week, and two assault victims per week.
"Shooting casualties" caused by republicans are down 43 per cent on the preceding six months and 64 per cent on the same period in 2004. Assault casualties caused by republicans are down 40 per cent on the previous six months and 17 per cent on the same period in 2004.
Dissident republicans retain ambitions to grow into a major security threat.
"Following the PIRA statement of 28 July, and before the decommissioning announced on 26 September, dissident republicans approached members of PIRA who they believed might be disgruntled as a result of that statement, hoping to obtain weapons from them, but there has been no evidence of any success," the report says.
The Continuity IRA has "remained intermittently active", with some recruitment and training but it is not coherently organised and there is internal feuding.
The Real IRA remains the most active of the dissidents with members carrying out beatings including the attack on the deputy chair of the policing board Denis Bradley. "We believe it would kill members of the security forces in Northern Ireland if it had the opportunity to do so." It planted incendiary devices at shopping centres in March, carried out bomb hoaxes and remained involved in organised crime. The Real IRA wants to "improve its organisational and technical capacity. It remains violent, dangerous and determined." The INLA has been extensively involved in organised crime, though is less violent than previously.
The LVF feud has "largely died down" but it remains heavily involved in organised crime, especially drugs and remains "a deeply criminal organisation".
The UVF has killed four people in its feud with the LVF. It believed, in some cases wrongly, that these were LVF members or associates. The feud has died down but the commission fears this lull may be temporary.
Despite the UDA's November 2004 statement that it would desist from "military activity, it continues to be involved in violent and other serious crime and remains an active threat to the rule of law in Ireland".
Then there is the IRA. Five of the six months covered by this report preceded its July 28th statement. In the early part of this period, training took place, including in weapon use. Since July 28th there is "no evidence of training or recruitment after [ that] statement. There are indications that the organisation's intelligence function remained active though its focus may be becoming more political."
In early July the IRA carried out a shooting attack on someone it had assaulted in March. It had conducted 10 assaults, one on an IRA member, since the July 28th statement. There were incidents throughout the six-month period of intimidation, extortion but "it is not possible at this stage to say whether these activities were authorised by the leadership."
Overall, the report concludes, "it is too early to be drawing firm conclusions about possible overall changes in behaviour, although we do note some indications of changes in PIRA structures."