Analysis: There is little prospect of slavaging the NI political process this year, writes Gerry Moriarty
"In essence this large robbery has become the largest theft of waste paper in the living history of Northern Ireland."
So said the PSNI Chief Constable Hugh Orde, when attributing the Northern Bank heist to the IRA. It was a good line, considering that the Northern Bank's decision to embark on the huge logistical project of withdrawing some hundreds of millions of its notes and issuing new ones renders most of the swag worthless. A good line, but not quite accurate.
The current estimated haul is £26.5 million, of which £22 million is in Northern Banks notes, much of which will now be unusable. But there is still at least £4.5 million out there in other untraceable sterling notes as well as about £5 million in Northern Bank notes, without traceable serial numbers, that the robbers might choose to bring to their local bank to exchange for legitimate currency. Fat pickings either or both ways.
The Northern Bank can probably stand the loss of that money, but can the political process? It goes without saying that any chance of a political deal before the British general election, due in May, is well and truly torpedoed. And such is the state of this damaged political ship that the prospects of re-salvaging the hulk any time this year would seem pretty shaky.
In all times of crisis Northern politicians play the usual blame/counter-blame game. And so it was yesterday.
Martin McGuinness and other Sinn Féiners focused on the conspiracy theory by naming a senior NIO official they said was briefing against republicans in the US, and getting some of the lowdown about a private briefing the Northern Secretary, Mr Paul Murphy, delivered in Boston.
But it all smacked of one of Alfred Hitchcock's Maguffins, those plots that the great director liked to introduce to his films as a distraction from the main story.
Mr McGuinness still had a strong card to play yesterday. "Produce the evidence," he challenged Mr Orde. Instead, Mr Orde produced the intelligence. If the chief constable had evidence one or more people would be arrested and charged by now.
Mr Orde is certain that the IRA was involved. Thereafter it's a question of whom you believe, Mr Orde or Mr McGuinness? The British and Irish governments and most everyone else believe Mr Orde. So, if Mr Orde is correct why did the IRA do it? Because they could, was the answer circulating yesterday.
A key question here is would the robbery have happened if the political deal had worked? Some on the extremely cynical wing argue that even if the DUP signed up to a deal with Sinn Féin, the IRA would have gone ahead with the robbery to cause almighty embarrassment to Ian Paisley and Peter Robinson.
Perhaps. But it would only have been for short-term gain, because even with their red faces the DUP would have quickly walked away from Sinn Féin and the deal. And despite all the ructions the governments say they still believe Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness want a deal with the DUP.
A more credible scenario perhaps is that it was only after the deal collapsed that the green light was given for the robbery. Isn't that the height of duplicity coming after Sinn Féin was in the midst of negotiations with the Taoiseach and British Prime Minister? Certainly, but from a republican perspective what was there to loose? September at the earliest is the next opportunity for a deal, when the fallout from the robbery may have faded and politicians may be again compelled to confront the challenge of trying to share power.
So, with or without the robbery, it will be up to 12 months before the next push for agreement. Why not line the IRA's coffers in the meantime?
Cynical and embarrassing for Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern, who invested such trust in the republican movement, yes, but hardly surprising in terms of Northern politics and paramilitarism.