Sinn Féin has criticised as a "political intervention" during the election campaign comments by PSNI chief constable Hugh Orde stating that the IRA is still recruiting and targeting potential victims even though it is not planning to end its ceasefire.
Mr Orde confirmed Taoiseach Bertie Ahern's comments last week that the IRA remained active while it also considered the appeal by Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams for the paramilitary organisation to fully embrace peace and democracy.
"Currently, I am absolutely clear the Provisional IRA are not going back to an armed struggle," Mr Orde said in Belfast yesterday where he attended the first outstanding service awards presentation ceremony for PSNI officers.
"That is my current assessment. They have the capability. They have the capacity. We know they are still recruiting, they still target, they still carry out the activities that they have always done with the exception of actually going out to kill soldiers, police, civilians, members of the public," he added.
Mr Orde also reacted cautiously to Mr Adams's call on the IRA to end activity and his statement this week that the paramilitary group has now embarked on an internal debate ahead of issuing that response.
"Actions speak louder than words and currently I haven't seen an awful lot of action that suggests that there is going to be a fundamental shift. That doesn't mean there won't be but, as we said when the loyalists declared their renewed ceasefire, we'll wait and see," Mr Orde said.
Sinn Féin general secretary Mitchel McLaughlin dismissed Mr Orde's remarks as "yet another political intervention" when the Sinn Féin leadership was attempting to end the political deadlock and when the IRA was debating Mr Adams's appeal.
"When Hugh Orde took over the reins of the PSNI he told us that he would not mix policing with politics. Unfortunately on a number of occasions he has insisted on making very overt political interventions," said Mr McLaughlin.
"Given the fact that these latest remarks come in the midst of an election campaign and at a time when the initiative by Gerry Adams offers the prospect of forward movement in the political process, many questions will be raised about the intentions of the PSNI in the time ahead," he added.
UUP leader David Trimble warned that a vote for the DUP and Sinn Féin would reinforce the political extremes in Northern Ireland and damage Northern society. He said it was vital that people vote in this election and that those who might be inclined to support moderate parties did not stay away from the polls.
"If they want to see the kind of progress we achieved in the mid-1990s then you have to back those parties that achieved that progress," he said.
Mr Trimble warned that if the stalemate continued there was a very serious danger "of the political situation deteriorating, and we can't afford that".
He said the DUP and Sinn Féin tried to achieve a deal last December but failed. "There is no prospect that they are going to do any better again. If you want to see progress then you have got to come back to those parties that achieved it. If you stay with the extremists things will get worse," Mr Trimble told UTV.
The SDLP candidate in East Antrim, Danny O'Connor, made a similar call yesterday when launching party proposals against hate crime. "It is time somebody shouted stop if we are not to become completely Balkanised, as Séamus Mallon has warned.
"In this election people can shout stop by holding back the parties of the extreme," he added.
DUP deputy leader Peter Robinson said that unionist unity was in prospect after the election but it was not a unity that involved the DUP and the UUP but a unity centred on his party.
"We must continue to build the widest possible coalition of support for the message the DUP has been setting out during this campaign," he said.
The Workers' Party said those who stayed at home for the election were "signing up for political stalemate".
