The Government's insistence that it has not changed its stance on the early release of Provisional IRA members involved in the killing of Detective Garda Jerry McCabe is incredible.
It was obviously played as a trump card in the negotiations on the endgame. What is now clear is that the ending of all IRA activities would have created the circumstances, in the Government's view, where the four remaining prisoners could have been released. The Government was adamant, on all previous occasions, that the men would serve out their full sentences.
The report that Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, was prepared to contemplate the early release of the men, as part of a series of measures to be adopted in the event of a deal on devolution being agreed last October, indicates just how hopeful the Government was that final negotiations on all outstanding aspects of the Belfast Agreement were taking place.
In the aftermath of the Assembly elections, the DUP insisted a new executive involving Sinn Féin would only be formed if the IRA went out of business. And the Government's response to last month's report from the International Monitoring Commission on the level of loyalist and republican criminal activity reflected a more assertive attitude towards Sinn Féin. Mr Ahern said republicans would have to decommission their weapons and end paramilitarism.
Earlier this week, an initiative by the two Governments to restore devolved government in Northern Ireland ran into difficulties when it became clear the IRA would not engage in "acts of completion" in advance of guarantees that the DUP would reinstate the power-sharing executive and the other institutions of the Belfast Agreement. In such an atmosphere of distrust, the Government's apparent willingness to release the remaining prisoners was certain to embarrass.
Those involved in the McCabe killing have always been treated as special. Even before they were convicted, the Government announced they would not qualify for release under the Belfast Agreement. The prisoners took a High Court action in 2003 to compel the Minister for Justice to release them and they failed. A political judgment had been made to keep them locked up. That judgment obviously changed when their release was seen as contributing to the restoration of the executive.
As Sinn Fein well knows, having participated in the Belfast Agreement negotiations, nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. Without the benefit of its context, the peculiar disclosure of the possible release of Detective Garda McCabe's killers is dishonest.