IRA blamed for heist

It now seems unlikely that any successful move to restore devolution will come before May’s expected British general election and the political deep freeze could last even longer.
The taoiseach said on Sunday he agreed with the chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, Hugh Orde, in blaming the IRA and went on to accuse the Sinn Fein leadership of knowing about it in advance.
Speaking at a press conference in Belfast last Friday, Orde had said it now made “operational sense” to attribute blame for the Dec. 19-20 robbery of the Northern Bank headquarters in Belfast. He insisted his statement was not in response to political pressure but to prevent a focus on which group had committed the crime, not the crime itself.
“What I can say is, on the basis of the investigative work we have done to date, the evidence we have collected, the information we have collected, the exhibits we have collected, and bringing it all together and working through it, in my opinion the Provision IRA were responsible for this crime,” Orde said.
“All main lines of inquiry currently undertaken are in this direction,” he added, declining reporters’ invitations to provide evidence, saying this would compromise the police inquiry.
Republican sources, both privately and publicly, are adamant that there was no IRA involvement. Many Sinn Fein supporters are openly gleeful that the blame is falling on the IRA — but republican leaders insist they had no hand, act or part in it.
One senior Sinn Fein figure said the only people who took any satisfaction from blaming the IRA were the DUP and the robbers themselves, who knew the police were not looking in their direction.
Ahern’s response on Sunday provoked a furious riposte from Sinn Fein MP Martin McGuinness, who said he had no idea why the taoiseach was claiming he had such knowledge, but it was certainly untrue.
The gardai say they have no plans to interview either McGuinness or party leader Gerry Adams, despite the taoiseach’s claim, with police in Northern Ireland showing an equal lack of interest in questioning Sinn Fein leaders about their alleged advanced knowledge of the crime.
The Irish government, meanwhile, has confirmed, in the wake of Orde’s coments, that any deal on the early release of the killers of Det. Garda Jerry McCabe, which had created a political storm, is now “off.”
In a strongly worded statement, Ahern said he had no reason to doubt Orde’s assessment that the IRA was responsible for the Northern Bank raid — now said to have netted those responsible