Adams reaction: The Sinn Féin president, Mr Gerry Adams, has not been able to guarantee that senior Sinn Féin figures are not serving in high positions on the IRA's Army Council, it has emerged.
"I would not necessarily know if they were. . .", he said. Even if he did know, it was an IRA which had been on ceasefire for the last 10 years, he said during a bad-tempered television appearance on RTÉ's Six One News.
Speaking to a party rally shortly beforehand, Mr Adams railed against the Independent Monitoring Commission, criticising its four members, including a former secretary of the Department of Justice, Mr Joe Brosnan.
Dealing with allegations of paramilitary criminality, Mr Adams said: "Sinn Féin is also against criminality of any sort. And we deeply resent any attempt to besmirch republicans with that label." The IMC, he said, had been set up to exclude Sinn Féin, "to soft-pedal on unionist violence and to entirely ignore the behaviour of the British government - the party most in breach of the Good Friday agreement".
The Sinn Féin leader refused to take questions from the media after his speech to the rally, which appeared to have been called specifically to ensure that journalists did not have the opportunity to question him.
"The commission is not independent. That much is obvious from its remit, its membership and the fact it bases its decisions on reports from the PSNI, the British army and securocrats," he said.
The latter, he said, continued to dictate the British government's attitudes and actions. "The pretence of it making recommendations to the two governments is an undemocratic political farce," he told his supporters.
The IMC felt able to tie the attack on Belfast republican Mr Bobby Tohill to the IRA even though four men are currently awaiting trial in Belfast in connection with the alleged offence.
Secondly, the IMC was able to report within three months even though the Irish and British governments had failed "to mete out" justice to the family of murdered solicitor Mr Pat Finucane 15 years after his killing.
"The commission's report is a proxy report by the securocrats which recommends sanctions against Sinn Féin - despite the clear fact that we are not in any way in breach of the agreement, nor did they suggest we were.
"While accepting that Sinn Féin is not in a position to actually determine the policies or operational strategies of the IRA, the commission recommends financial penalties against Sinn Féin.
"This is a nonsense position. It is a politically-contrived conclusion which has no basis in fact," said Mr Adams, who subsequently agreed to two television interviews.
"The commission's recommendations are clearly discriminatory; they subvert the democratic and electoral rights and mandate of Sinn Féin and of our electorate.
"Sinn Féin will not accept this partisan report.
"We will not accept this attack on our party. We will not accept this attack on our electoral mandate. We will challenge it by every means at our disposal and at every door we go to in the upcoming election campaign. We will also put responsibility for the current crisis precisely where it belongs - with the two governments."
