THERE has been disquiet among some senior gardai and members of the Special Branch since the end of 1994 about the level of confidence the Government placed on the IRA maintaining its ceasefire.
According to Garda sources there has been a refusal in Government to take proper cognisance of their warnings that the IRA was continuing to smuggle arms into the State, develop new weapons, carry on training and target security forces members in Northern Ireland.
Gardai were also worried that anti terrorist resources and operations were being depleted as confidence, now seen to be misplaced, in the IRA ceasefire grew.
Some gardai believe the Government was becoming too dependent on information about the IRA's intentions derived from its own channels, set up with the republican leadership in the period before the IRA ceasefire. These links are through senior officials in the Departments of Foreign Affairs and the Taoiseach.
It is understood Garda management, under the Commissioner, Patrick Culligan, resisted pressure to move large numbers of gardai from the Border to Dublin in response to rising ordinary crime.
Speculation, in the aftermath of the IRA ceasefire, that 300 officers should be moved from the Border to help fight crime in Dublin caused consternation among gardai.
However, what reductions have taken place along the Border have been through natural wastage and the redirecting of recruits to Dublin.
There has been a less than 10 per cent decline in the numbers of gardai serving along the Border, and the Special Branch units from Louth to Donegal are largely intact, although mainly directed towards dealing with ordinary crime and drug trafficking. Overtime pay and resources were, however, cut back, particularly in Border areas.
Some key Special Branch officers, with considerable experience of anti IRA operations, have also moved to other duties in the past year.
Chief Supt Kevin Carty, who led the successful searches for IRA weapons in the southwest in 1994, has been put in charge of the Drugs Bureau at Garda Headquarters.
The Special Branch along the Border is expecting to receive orders in the next day or two to resume operations against IRA activity, and to begin surveillance and wad checks to prevent a possible attack by loyalist paramilitaries.
During the weekend garda commented that the possibility of a loyalist attack in the Republic was a likely response, if the IRA carried out any further attacks in London. This fear was underlined by the comments of loyalist figures yesterday.
Special Branch detectives assigned to ordinary crime duties informed on Friday night to expect to be moved back to anti terrorist duties.
Large numbers of Special Branch officers have been directed, at the behest of Government, to mounting checkpoints in Co Galway in response to attacks on elderly farmers.
Units of armed Special Branch officers have been travelling from Dublin to Galway on six hour rotating shifts in what has become known as "Operation Shannon". The Special Branch input to this operation is now understood to be ending.
Gardai are almost universally sceptical about the effectiveness of such operations in catching or deterring "ordinary" criminals. It is generally accepted that the operation may have had a reassuring effect on worried elderly people, but there has been a considerable drain on Special Branch resources.
Since the IRA ceasefire, the Special Branch has also been directing most of its anti terrorist activities against people associated with Republican Sinn Fein and a handful of INLA figures in Dublin, Dundalk and Monaghan.
Later this year, when the Republic assumes the EU presidency, there will be added strain on Special Branch resources as officers have to provide security for visiting heads of state and senior foreign officials.