The Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) will today inform the British and Irish governments that the IRA is still engaged in intelligence-gathering and this appears to be sanctioned at leadership level, according to well-placed sources. Gerry Moriarty, Northern Editor, reports.
The IMC report will also point to continuing IRA criminality but leave open whether such activity is authorised by IRA leaders or whether it is due to IRA members operating autonomously or semi-autonomously, sources have also stated.
The report, nonetheless, will be generally positive about the IRA and will acknowledge that it is broadly living up to its commitments of July 28th last year to cease activity and end its armed campaign.
The British and Irish governments, which are to receive the IMC report today, are privately conceding that it will not be the catalyst to persuade the DUP leader, the Rev Ian Paisley, to begin opening contacts with Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams.
There will be little surprise at the IMC determination that IRA criminality remains a problem but its finding that the IRA is still gathering intelligence will cause unease.
It will almost certainly ensure that when the DUP holds its annual conference in Belfast on Saturday, the strong mood at leadership and floor level will be to reject any pressure to engage with Sinn Féin in power-sharing talks.
The IMC takes its information from a variety of sources, including the PSNI, Garda and MI5.
"There is evidence of intelligence-gathering and the feeling is that this could not happen without the knowledge of the IRA leadership," The Irish Times was informed by a senior source. He said it was difficult to explain why the IRA was still engaged in spying activity, particularly after all the complications caused for the organisation by the exposure of such senior republicans as Denis Donaldson and Freddie Scappaticci as British agents.
"It could be a question of old habits die hard. In fact it could be defensive in that they could say, 'Well, the Brits are doing it to us, so we are entitled to do it to them'. The IRA probably regards it as a legitimate response to what it sees as political policing."
He said that to a large extent the continuing criminality related to areas such as smuggling and counterfeiting.
"The question here is whether this is people operating at an individual level or whether some of the proceeds from this crime is going back to the IRA leadership," he added.
The report, which further deals with the level of loyalist paramilitary activity and criminality, as well as the behaviour of republican dissident groups, will also make reference to people exiled by the IRA and other paramilitaries.
The IMC's conclusions will also pose some awkward questions for the North's Security Minister, Shaun Woodward, who in December told The Irish Times he had "no reason to believe that the IRA is involved in any criminality at all".
The Irish Times source was keen to stress that while there was evidence of continuing IRA activity, generally the IMC findings were positive about the IRA. Dublin and London are already primed about what to expect in the report, and are now looking more to the next IMC publication in April for increasingly positive findings that would put pressure on Dr Paisley to do business with Mr Adams.