The IRA's recent statement fails to deny that either the purchase of arms in Florida or the execution of Charles Bennett in Belfast were carried out on its behalf. With dismissive arrogance, it merely asserts the former was unauthorised and the murder did not constitute a breach of its ceasefire. The latter claim merely reflects its contemptuous certainty for the judgment of Dr Mo Mowlan and calls in question the entire basis of the Belfast Agreement.

Three questions go to the heart of the alleged peace process. First, is the ongoing judgment of Dr Mow lam that the IRA ceasefire remains intact any longer credible? Second, can the agreement allow Sinn Fein to be treated as a democratic party with a mandate while it remains inextricably linked with the IRA? Third, can Sinn Fein remain politically unaccountable for IRA violence?

Rational answers to these questions can only be given if one accepts that New Labour is wedded to the solution of Irish unity, albeit according to its own definition of the consent principle, and that the primary object of the peace process is conflict resolution with the IRA to prevent any resumption of a mainland bombing campaign.

As Fergus Finlay, sometime political adviser to Dick Spring, succinctly put it: "Without Sinn Fein, the process is not worth a penny candle." He meant, of course, a Sinn Fein which could speak for and deliver the IRA.

It is this view of the process which explains why the British government has resiled from every position it has assumed on decommissioning immediately such was threatened with a resumption of IRA violence. Criticisms of such shifts in policy were rebuffed with the claim that the only alternative was a return to 30 years of violence, but like Hitler, each act of appeasement strengthened and emboldened the IRA.

A Conservative motion in the Commons that the release of prisoners should be stopped or curtailed pending movement on decommissioning was rejected by Mr Blair on the ground that it would end the process and signal a return to violence. The significance of this reply was not lost upon the IRA, for the violence Mr Blair feared was not that in Northern Ireland, which continues daily, but a resumption of violence on the mainland.

The Secretary of State's judgment as to what amounts to a breach of the IRA ceasefire is subject to similar political constraints. Her political judgment made "in the round" has serious consequences for the organisation concerned. First, it may lose any entitlement to the release of its prisoners. Second, the political party with which it is associated ought to be expelled from the political process.

Mr Ahern seems to believe that Sinn Fein and the IRA are not associated, for if they are, Sinn Fein must be held politically accountable for IRA violence and be subject to the appropriate sanctions. The reality is that just as linking decommissioning to the release of prisoners would, according to Mr Blair, end the process, so any decision that the IRA was in breach of its ceasefire might have similar results and send the IRA back to war against the British state.

These considerations are the key to what sort of violence constitutes a breach of the ceasefire. A breach is not judged by the intrinsic nature of the act, whether it is murder or mutilation. It is the political classification of the victims and the location of the crime which are the determining factors. On this basis, the murder of alleged drug-dealers, the knee capping of petty criminals, internecine killings, or even, in the case of Andrew Kearney, the murder of someone merely for refusing to be intimidated by a local IRA thug, may not "in the round" amount to a breach of the ceasefire.

Nor will multiples of these crimes alter the situation, for, on such criteria, republicans and loyalists may murder, maim and terrorise "their own" without any breach of the ceasefire being occasioned. The ceasefires, after all, are between military belligerents and, on this view, do not extend to the human flotsam of the ghettos.

Coupled with these immoral distinctions is the Secretary of State's repeated call for "evidence" which she claims to need in order to bring the perpetrators to justice. This too is a piece of political casuistry, for the judgment she makes is not legal but political.

The basis of her judgment is not legally admissible evidence, but relevant and material intelligence. Eyewitnesses to a murder may, out of fear, refuse to give evidence in court yet provide unanswerable intelligence as to the identity and association of those involved. The judgment of a court is made upon an individual; that of the Secretary of State is made upon an organisation. The criteria for each must not be confused.

The Prime Minister has affirmed his belief that Sinn Fein and the IRA are inextricably linked. It is public knowledge that the highest offices in both are occupied by the same people. Yet the Belfast Agreement treated Sinn Fein on the same basis as the democratic parties and required it to do no more than to use such influence as it might have to secure decommissioning by May 22nd, 2000. Nor was any sanction to be imposed upon Sinn Fein should it fail to secure IRA compliance.

The Ulster Unionist leadership allowed itself to be pressurised into an agreement which perpetuated the fiction of Sinn Fein/IRA separation and which contained no express terms requiring a beginning of decommissioning before either Sinn Fein could participate in an executive or the IRA could have its prisoners released. Tony Blair aided and abetted this deception with public pledges and private letters of comfort to David Trimble.

The parties who highlighted these defects were dismissed as wreckers. Their warnings that Sinn Fein would use the literal terms of the agreement to subvert the principles of democracy were derided. John Bruton has stated that "lies are not a durable basis for peace" and declared that Sinn Fein must be accountable politically for IRA violence. If it is not, the Mitchell Principles and those of non-violence in the agreement would be meaningless.

The wild swings of Mr Ahern's pendulum policy on decommissioning as he struggles to avoid the democratic implications of IRA violence are less than attractive as grim reality emerges from the fog of deception.

The time has come for Mr Blair and Mr Ahern to face up to some hard choices. Either the principles of moral decency, democracy and the rule of law are to be preserved or they are to be abandoned in the face of terror for what is no longer a process for peace but a choreographed surrender to terror.

Mr Robert McCartney is leader of the UK Unionist Party