The Government will not be fully satisfied that the IRA has abandoned all criminality until the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) gives the terrorist group a clean bill of health, the Minister for Justice said today.
As the Irish and British governments wait for the unionist community to accept that the IRA has decommissioned all its arms, Michael McDowell said he will await IMC reports due in October and January before making up his mind.
Minister for Justice Michael McDowell
In the aftermath of the £26.5 million Northern Bank robbery last Christmas and the murder of Belfast man Robert McCartney in January, Mr McDowell had accused Sinn Féin leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness of sitting on the IRA's ruling Army Council.
Speaking about IRA criminality, he said today: "No, I'm not satisfied of those matters and I await the views of the IMC over the next number of months. I think we have to await their verdict on the matter.
"The IMC was established in the teeth of bitter opposition from Sinn Féin in the Dáil. They criticised it roundly. They claimed it was a breach of the Good Friday Agreement," he said.
"We can all see why after the Northern Bank robbery they were so anxious to prevent any independent monitoring body to keep an eye on what the Provisional movement was up to.
"The Taoiseach has consistently said it is a matter of deeds and actions rather than words that matter now. As far as I am concerned, I will await the IMC reports in October and January," Mr McDowell said.
After the International Independent Commission on Decommissioning (IICD) announced on Monday that the IRA had put all its arms beyond use, Mr McDowell said that he was satisfied with the IICD's verdict.
But he added: "I'm willing to take that as a working assumption until someone proves otherwise. It is essential that these powers are used to frustrate the well-advanced project of the Provisional IRA to create a state within a state on this island."
Mr McDowell said at an international policing conference in Co Monaghan in April that the IRA had a well-advanced project to create a state within a state on the island of Ireland.
At his Progressive Democrats party conference in Co Cork the same month, he said of Sinn Féin and the IRA: "There can be no armies, no arms dumps, no beatings, no extortion, no robbery, no breach of the electoral laws, no exiling, no smuggling, no protection rackets and no money-laundering either by or on behalf of those who engage in politics."
Mr McDowell also confirmed today he had no advance personal knowledge that chief negotiator Mr McGuinness would be barred from fundraising during his current trip to the United States despite the decommissioning of weapons by the IRA.
Under US State Department rules, foreign politicians have to apply for permission to raise funds from US donors before each of their visits to the country.
He said that he would adopt the position of US Special Envoy on Northern Ireland Mitchell Reiss and not comment further on visa arrangements of any individual.