February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
The British and Irish governments have requested the IMC to speed up its investigations into who was behind the robbery. The body had originally planned to publish a report into ongoing paramilitary activity in April.
However, following the Police Service of Northern Ireland chief constable’s contention that the IRA was responsible and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s statement that the Sinn Fein leadership had foreknowledge of the IRA’s plans, the IMC will focus on the record-breaking bank job.
Observers expect the IMC to recommend that financial penalties be imposed on Sinn Fein despite the Irish government’s unwillingness to punish the party. Dublin believes that such a move would enable republicans to pose as “victims.”
Speaking Monday, Ahern said: “I do not think the politics of exclusion or penalties will bring us forward. We have serious issues that we have to find resolutions for. I will positively work to try to find resolutions for those.”
The IMC carried out a special report last year following the alleged abduction by IRA members of Belfast dissident republican Bobby Tohill. The body was set up as part of the two governments’ joint declaration in 2003.
Republicans claimed that it was established as a sop to the Ulster Unionist Party leader David Trimble and that it would be used to exclude Sinn Fein from the political process.
The four-man team comprises John Alderdice, former leader of the Alliance party Joe Brosnan, former secretary general of the Irish Department of Justice John Grieve, former Deputy Assistant Commissioner in the British Metropolitan Police and former CIA deputy director Dick Kerr.
The IMC’s expected findings will fuel the current political controversy. Sinn Fein’s Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness met with Ahern and British Prime Minister Tony Blair last week in crunch meetings in Dublin and London.
Both premiers are thought to have stuck by their claims that the IRA carried out the raid and called on the Sinn Fein leadership to distance itself from ongoing “criminality.”
Adams said that the meetings had not descended into “rows” and that he expected that Sinn Fein would meet with the governments again soon.
However, Ahern traveled to London Tuesday to meet with Blair in the company of Garda commissioner Noel Conroy. PSNI’s chief constable, Hugh Orde, also attended the meeting.
The attendance of the two most senior policemen on the island of Ireland has led to concerns from republicans that the governments are no longer interested in reaching a deal on power sharing and are instead investing more time in security issues.
Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams said in an interview Sunday that the Irish government in particular was seemingly not interested in marshalling a fresh deal in the North.
“The failure of the initiatives last December and the attempt to criminalize republicans at the moment have made profound difficulties worse. And the stance of the government at the moment is not even aimed at trying to sort them out,” Adams told the Sunday Business Post.
“It appears the taoiseach has gone for a full-frontal attack. I hope that is not going to become government policy because that will be a very, very firm signal that they don’t think the process can work in the short term.”
Adams also raised concerns that the taoiseach had allowed Justice Minister Michael McDowell to take the government’s lead position on the North. McDowell has been scathing of the Sinn Fein leadership in recent weeks and has linked them to the turning “on and off” of punishment attacks in the North and of not being serious about peace.
“His anti-republicanism is famous, so my concern isn’t as much about what Michael McDowell is saying, although I find it very offensive,” Adams said. “It appears that he is taking the lead position for the government on the North, particularly since Brian Cowen shifted. That’s my concern.”
A report at the weekend that suggested the IRA was considering a return to a “limited” form of war has, meanwhile, been dismissed by republicans and the Dublin government. The Sunday Independent had reported that the taoiseach had received intelligence from the Garda that indicated that the IRA leadership was considering a limited return to violence in order to placate hardliners within the organization.
Bertie Ahern said he had received no such information while republican sources said the report was outlandish.