IRA intelligence gathering in Belfast has been smashed open by one of the biggest investigations mounted in Northern Ireland in the last decade, it was claimed tonight.
Senior detectives investigating the alleged republican spy ring inside the Government said they had breached the inner sanctums of the Provisional movement.
As a Stormont civil servant questioned in connection with the inquiry was suspended on full pay, the huge scale of the anti-terrorist operation was laid bare.
Acting deputy chief constable Alan McQuillan declared: "The investigation has taken us in to the heart of the IRA. We have broken up their intelligence cell in Belfast."
Around 40 detectives have been assigned to Operation Hezz following the raids on republican homes in West Belfast last month which led to four people, including Sinn Fein's administrative chief at Parliament Buildings, Mr Dennis Donaldson, being charged in connection with the alleged espionage plot inside the Northern Ireland Office.
The team has also been investigating the break-in at Special Branch offices inside Castlereagh police complex in east Belfast on St Patrick's night, which is also being blamed on the IRA.
But with the arrest and subsequent release without charge of a man who worked as a diary secretary at former first minister Mr David Trimble's private office last week, the focus has been firmly on republican activity at Stormont.
Mr McQuillan claimed a small number of people in a small number of government offices were being investigated.
He said: "We are very conscious that some people working within government who are decent, honest people may well have been approached and may well have had pressure put on them to provide information."
After hundreds of documents and computer disks were seized during the initial raids last month police discovered around 2,000 names who have since had to be warned to step up their personal security.
The detective heading the inquiry, Chief Superintendent Phil Wright said forensic scientists, police, military, members of the judiciary and loyalists were all alerted.
He added that 79 computers and 1,000 disks were still being examined. Around 19,000 pages of documentation had been scrutinised during the investigation, which has seen the investigating team take 2,000 statements and interview 5,000 people.
A bid to extradite a former chef at the Castlereagh station from the United States for questioning about the March 17th break-in has not yet been completed because a 3,000-page document has to be considered by the director of public prosecutions.
Mr McQuillan said that it has cost a fortune to run the probe.
"We also have recovered a significant number of documents that have originated within the Provisional IRA itself," he said.
The police chief claimed the material allegedly gathered by the IRA included information that was captured up to 12 months ago. He refused to comment on what impact it had on the Provisional ceasefire but said there was no evidence to suggest the intelligence was going to be used "in an offensive way".
He insisted that only a small number of people working within departments such as the Northern Ireland Office and the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister were under suspicion.
PA