The PSNI chief constable has claimed that loyalist and republican paramilitaries have each been engaged in about 50 "punishment beatings" and shootings over the past year.
Addressing a meeting of the Policing Board in public session yesterday, Mr Hugh Orde said that the bulk of the republican paramilitary beatings were carried out by the Provisional IRA rather than dissidents.
He further claimed that drug peddling by paramilitaries continued.
In a riposte to Mr Orde's comments, Sinn Féin yesterday published a dossier of alleged sectarian attacks by loyalist paramilitaries in the Lagan Valley area outside Belfast. Mr Gerry Kelly, the North Belfast Assembly member and policing spokesman, along with Cllr Paul Butler, released their file of attacks at a press conference.
Mr Orde told board members: "The UDA \ still committing a large number of punishment beatings - over 50 punishment beatings and punishment shootings. They are still involved in the trafficking of drugs within their own community, peddling fear and crime throughout that community." He continued: "On the other side of the divide, the Provisional IRA without doubt have also committed roughly a similar number of punishment beatings and shootings. We would attribute most of the republican beatings to the Provisional IRA rather than to dissident groups."
He also claimed that some victims were "too terrified" to co-operate with the police.
The head of the Assets Recovery Agency also pointed to continued paramilitary involvement in racketeering. Mr Alan McQuillan, a former assistant chief constable, told the Policing Board yesterday that the IRA was linked to smuggling.
He said much IRA activity in organised crime centred on what he called "excise offences" involving motor fuel, which were particularly lucrative. "In terms of a figure of £200 million per annum, I'm not in a position to confirm that. Customs would have to do that. But it does not seem to me to be an unreasonable estimate."
Mr Orde's comments follow his politically-controversial remarks immediately following the alleged attempted abduction of Mr Bobby Tohill by the IRA in Belfast last month.
Unionists are still enraged by the assertion that republican violence, in breach of article 13 of the two governments' Joint Declaration, is ongoing.
The Ulster Unionist leader, Mr David Trimble, has already walked out of the review of the Belfast Agreement at Stormont, and yesterday led a delegation for talks about ongoing paramilitarism with the Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, in Downing Street.
Sinn Féin reacted strongly yesterday, accusing the chief constable of increasingly "unwarranted and unwanted political interventions".
Mr Kelly said the dossier had been presented to the British and Irish governments at the review of the Belfast Agreement meeting at Stormont on Tuesday. The review session was specifically called to consider ongoing paramilitarism.
Mr Kelly said yesterday Sinn Féin had demanded answers from the governments concerning the spate of attacks. "If the two governments and the other parties wish to discuss paramilitarism then they need to discuss it in the round. It cannot be confined to an anti-Sinn Féin or anti-republican agenda.
"We asked the two governments where the special meetings were to discuss the sectarian campaign being waged by the unionist paramilitaries? Where were the special meetings to discuss the attacks on a 105-year-old woman in North Belfast? Where were the meetings to discuss the DUP role in Ulster Resistance or the role of British government agents within the various unionist paramilitary gangs?
"Sinn Féin are more than happy to discuss paramilitarism," he said. "But the process cannot be confined to this issue. There is a range of issues which need to be addressed, and a range of commitments which need to be implemented if the process is to be advanced."