PD reaction: The Tánaiste, Ms Harney, has said that the implication of the Provisional IRA in the Northern Bank robbery was a "very serious and sinister development".
Ms Harney's official spokesman said the development raised "profound questions about the stated commitments of Sinn Féin and the IRA to democracy and the law of the land".
After the PSNI Chief Constable, Mr Hugh Orde, blamed the IRA for the robbery, the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, said he had no reason to differ from that assessment.
Mr McDowell questioned the credibility of the claim by the Sinn Féin chief negotiator, Mr Martin McGuinness, that the IRA had told him it had no involvement in the robbery.
"Why would they admit that they were involved? Why would they tell him that they were involved in order for him to pass it on to the public?" asked Mr McDowell.
"Can you imagine if he was saying, yes the IRA did do this? Can you imagine the humiliation and destruction that would do to his political position?"
The Minister said on RTÉ radio that he was wholly unimpressed by anything the IRA said.
He pointed out that the paramilitary organisation had claimed that it had no involvement in the killing of Det Garda Jerry McCabe, when it had.
"The point is that the IRA has been engaged for many, many years in high-level criminality. I said last year, and it was absolutely true, that in the Republic they were organising robberies of high-value goods," he said.
"They were doing it originally through their Dublin brigade of the IRA and they then switched it to direct control from the adjutant of the IRA in Belfast. I have no doubt that they were engaging in these activities.
"Everything that I said was true, and I have no reason to believe that anything Hugh Orde has said was untrue."
Mr McDowell claimed the IRA lived in a parallel universe and said it used language in a way that was different to "ordinary" human beings.
"We heard last week from Gerry Adams that things such as a shooting of Jean McConville in the head aren't crimes, so you have to take everything that is said from the Provisional movement in that context," the Minister said.
