Irish republicans are embarked on a journey which should lead to the eventual
disbandment of the IRA, outgoing Northern Ireland police chief Sir Ronnie Flanagan claimed today.
With speculation intensifying the group is poised to make another move on arms decommissioning, Mr Flanagan said he believed the will of the majority in the IRA was towards peace.
"I have no doubt that the republican movement is now on a road the destination of which, as a logical conclusion, is that the IRA should not exist," the Police Service of Northern Ireland Chief Constable said at his east Belfast office.
"I don't pretend that is going to happen tomorrow or in the immediate future but I certainly could see it happening in the future."
Mr Flanagan, who steps down from his post at midnight on Sunday, insisted he was not suggesting everybody in the IRA had come to the conclusion that violence was morally wrong.
However, he believed many within the republican movement had reached "a rather pragmatic view" that violence "doesn't bring about progress towards ultimate goals."
Mr Flanagan, who has predicted a second act of IRA disarmament is a real possibility, was not optimistic that loyalist paramilitaries were prepared to do the same.
Acknowledging the fragmentation in the loyalist camp, he told PA News: "In recent times steps have been taken to try and establish some sort of political representation and in some senses that has led to a dampening of the violence that we had witnessed.
"That is all to the good because these people - let's call them the godfathers of loyalist organisations - while it isn't true to say that they have always orchestrated violence, it is certainly true to say they have enough influence to bring about a very significant dampening effect.
"Therefore the fragmentation that we witnessed tended to reduce that dampening ability and I think what we are seeing in recent weeks is some attempt to re-establish a political platform for so-called loyalists.
"If that's developed and fostered, then that is all to the good but I have honestly nothing, we have no intelligence to hand to suggest loyalist decommissioning is imminent."
With Sinn Féin still refusing to endorse the Police Service of Northern Ireland, the Chief Constable was confident the party would eventually join the new 19-member Police Board in Belfast.
Despite republican protestations that the service must be made more accountable, he declared: "I have no doubt it will happen and the sooner, the better.
"I think that any reasons for not participating are almost daily diminishing and really it is time for everybody to accept responsibility and to work from within the mechanisms which have been created. I am confident that will happen."
PA