IRA is still recruiting new members, says Orde

The IRA is continuing to recruit and target new members even if it is not going back to an armed struggle, PSNI Chief Constable Hugh Orde said today.

Mr Orde confirmed Taoiseach Bertie Ahern's assessment last week that the Provisionals are remaining active while an internal debate takes place on whether they should abandon violence purely for politics.

As he attended the first presentation ceremony in Belfast for officers in the Police Service of Northern Ireland's awards for outstanding service, Mr Orde said: "Currently, I am absolutely clear the Provisional IRA are not going back to an armed struggle.

"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."

Two days ago, Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams confirmed he had been contacted by the IRA leadership to say it had authorised an internal debate on his call to consider abandoning armed struggle.

Mr Adams restated his view that the way forward for republicanism was through building political support for its objectives across Ireland and internationally.

"Irish republicanism is at a defining point. The peace process is at a defining point," he said.

"A positive decision by the IRA at the end of its internal deliberations will have enormous significance and impact. It has the potential to halt the downward spiral in the peace process and to strengthen our ability to advance our republican objectives."

There has been a sceptical response among Sinn Féin's opponents on both sides of the Border to Mr Adams's appeal, with some unionists and nationalists dismissing it as a ruse to maximise the republican vote in next week's general and local government election.

Mr Orde said dissident hardline republican groups such as the "Real" and Continuity IRA were still trying to cause as much disruption but had been thwarted by a number of arrests by police on both sides of the Border.

He said there appeared to be no real focus among loyalist groups, and that loyalists appeared to be more concerned about making money from criminal enterprises.

PA