IRA still involved in organised crime - PSNI

Northern Ireland's top detective has told the Policing Board that the IRA is still involved in organised crime, it was revealed…

Northern Ireland's top detective has told the Policing Board that the IRA is still involved in organised crime, it was revealed last night.

Police Service Assistant Chief Constable Sam Kinkaid gave his assessment at a behind closed doors to board members in Belfast.

At the meeting he said on the terrorism front things were positive in terms of IRA activity - there had been no punishment shootings or robberies in the months since the IRA announced it had called a permanent halt to its activities.

But Mr Kinkaid said that on the criminal front "all sides" - including the IRA - were still involved in organised crime.

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The meeting was also attended by Alan McQuillan, the deputy director of the Assets Recovery Agency, and Northern Ireland Security Minister Shaun Woodward.

The ACC's words contrast sharply with those of the Security Minister who recently said the IRA was no longer involved in organised crime.

Assembly member Ian Paisley jnr, the Democratic Unionist Party security spokesman and also a member of the Policing Board, said there had been astonishment around the table when Mr Kinkaid made his comments because it was so at variance with what Mr Woodward had been saying publicly.

He called for Mr Woodward to resign as Security minister in the wake of the revelations. He said: "The information which Shaun Woodward received was exactly the same as the Policing Board and from the same source yet the interpretation he has put on it is completely and unjustifiably different."

Mr Paisley added: "When you have no confidence in a person's judgment there is only one place for them to go and that is away from here." The Independent Monitoring Commission is due to report before the end of the month on whether the IRA has been inactive or not.

The British government is anxious for them to be given a clean bill of health and use that to kick-start a fresh push at a political settlement and the restoration of a devolved power-sharing administration at Stormont.

The DUP is already insisting there is not prospect of them going into government with Sinn Fein until they are convinced the IRA has stood down. Mr Kinkaid's words will have come as a total justification to the DUP.

A spokesman for the Northern Ireland Office said they respected the confidentiality of the briefing to the Policing Board.

He added: "It is for the Independent Monitoring Commission to comment on this issue and their next report is due very shortly."

Sinn Fein was swift to dismiss ACC Kinkaid's comments as: "A blatant example of political policing". The party's policing spokesman, North Belfast Assembly member Gerry Kelly said it was the latest in a series of serious efforts by anti-Republican elements to hold up progress in the peace process.