The warped, bizarre and peculiar mindset of the Provisional IRA has been unmasked for all to see in the McCartney case. Its grudging response to the brutal murder of Robert McCartney by its members in Belfast is manifestly inadequate to quell the growing demand within the nationalist community for justice, normal policing and the rule of law.
A point has been passed in Northern Ireland. IRA members who were once reluctantly accepted as the protectors of Catholic enclaves are being increasingly seen as self-serving thugs and bully-boys.
After nearly 11 years of formal ceasefire, the IRA is discovering that it has no positive role to play within nationalist communities. Yet, it continues to recruit and train members and to engage in criminality.
Its failure to formally accept the terms of the Belfast Agreement, as the basis of an agreed and lasting political settlement, is fundamental. It is determined to control nationalist areas and to dispense its own law, its own perverted order.
The IRA statement on the murder of Robert McCartney fully reflects that mindset. The notion of a state within a state, with kangaroo courts, standing orders and codes of conduct that operate within an IRA twilight zone, is at the heart of it. Three members involved in the killing of Mr McCartney were dismissed from the organisation for bringing the IRA into disrepute. They were instructed to take responsibility for their actions. But they have declined to do so. And nothing has happened to the nine other republicans who, the McCartney family say, are implicated in their brother's death.
The SDLP has dismissed the action as a cynical exercise. And nobody is in any doubt the IRA would have sat it out, had it not been for the courage of the McCartney family in publicly demanding truth and justice and the prosecution of those responsible. They challenged the hegemony of the IRA and led public protests. And they will receive formal support for their campaign in the Dáil today when Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny proposes a motion of solidarity.
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and British prime minister Tony Blair will review developments this week. And while there is no prospect of negotiations resuming at this time, the stated willingness of DUP leader the Rev Ian Paisley to share power with Sinn Féin in the absence of the IRA is a positive development.
The confluence of recent events exposing IRA criminality in all of its manifestations has moved centre stage on both sides of the Border. It has challenged this State, its institutions, its police force and its courts. It remains the primary obstacle to implementation of the Belfast Agreement.
The unprecedented pressure, primarily from within its own ranks, has led Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams to recognise the need for "hard decisions" to create the conditions under which the IRA will cease to exist. We have heard such talk before and we are weary of it now. There is another opportunity for greater clarity at the Sinn Féin Ardfheis in Dublin this weekend.