The Provisional IRA leadership, the seven-member army council, is said by Garda sources to be firmly behind the Sinn Fein leadership. In fact, the council, according to the sources, may contain up to four prominent Sinn Fein members.
There has been one recent addition - a Belfast man who directed the major bombing campaign in the city of the early 1990s and is regarded as a hardline figure but faithful to the political leadership.
The RUC believed this man was responsible for directing the assassination campaign against suspected drug-dealers in the city after the first IRA ceasefire, using the cover name of Direct Action Against Drugs (DAAD). He is also suspected of having directed the murder last week of the Newry drugs-dealer, Brendan "Speedy" Fegan. Membership of the army council varies from time to time but latest reports suggest it contains a south Armagh man who, in the past, was critical of the organisation's political leadership but who is believed now to support the process; and another Belfast man in his 50s regarded as a very hardline figure, but also supportive of the political leadership.
The figures who are said to hold dual membership of the political and military arms of the organisation are said to be from Derry, Belfast, Kerry and with a possible fourth man from Donegal.
The organisation's key military figure, its director of operations, is a Co Cavan man who has no public or political profile.
All in all, security sources believe the IRA leadership is, for the moment, strongly in line with the political direction being taken by the Sinn Fein leadership.
Its main problem, according to the sources, is that it fears it will lose a significant part of its organisation in the Border areas and in the Republic. This happened at the end of 1997 when there were significant defections to the group which was responsible for the Omagh bombing. However, after the mass killing in Omagh, the group responsible, calling itself the "Real IRA", disintegrated. The Provisionals moved against its leadership and warned those who were former Provisional IRA members who were suspected of defecting that they would be killed if they took any Provisional IRA guns.
In January, a leading figure in the Provisional IRA was observed by gardai in conversation with a woman who was prominent in the "Real IRA" at a hotel near the Border. According to Garda sources, the Provisional IRA man "did all the talking" and it seemed that he was issuing a warning to the "Real IRA" group.
Also, it is said that widespread threats by the Provisionals against the "Real IRA" group were successful and most of the figures who received warnings, including deaths threats, either returned to the Provisionals or agreed to retire from terrorism.
The main concern of the Provisional army council now is that there is still a significant number of disaffected members within its own organisation, who could quickly break away if there is any move to decommission weapons before Sinn Fein wins its place in the Northern executive.
According to a number of sources, the level of concern about this "split" is such that there is no chance of any decommissioning taking place before Sinn Fein is safely in an executive.
However, according to sources, the Provisional leadership has recently indicated it will consider some form of decommissioning gesture after Sinn Fein gets its seats in government. This is despite the thrice-repeated position of the IRA that it will not decommission.
However, the IRA did give its backing to Sinn Fein's participation in the Belfast Agreement and so assented to the agreement line that there be decommissioning within two years.
Both governments have also held to their commitments under the agreement, releasing all special-category prisoners from the Maze and Portlaoise.
Another reason put forward by the Provisionals for not decommissioning at this point is that it cannot justify giving up its membership's arms while dissident loyalists are conducting a campaign of pipe-bomb and petrol-bomb attacks against Catholics living in or near working-class Protestant areas.
This stems from the belief within the IRA that it has some role in defending the nationalist community in the North - although it has never actually fulfilled such a role.
The sectarian attacks against Catholics are being conducted by some of the elements which made up the group known as the Loyalist Volunteer Force, along with part of the Ulster Defence Association and a small number of extreme loyalist figures who have been involved in a number of strange splinter groups over the past two or three decades.
One of these men was associated with the paedophile ring surrounding the Kincora Boys Home in east Belfast during the 1970s.
This group, which uses the names Red Hand Defenders and Orange Volunteers, is currently the main terrorist threat to the political process in the North. One of its members from east Antrim, who is also a local UDA commander, is suspected of being behind the shooting of a Catholic workman in Carrickfergus last week.
This group, really a loose loyalist affiliation, has proved difficult for the RUC to penetrate, and there is concern it intends stepping up its attacks. According to loyalist sources, the group may be planning a mass killing, either in the form of a bomb or gun attack on a Catholic target. It has access to commercial explosive - which it used in the assassination of solicitor Rosemary Nelson - and it also has assault rifles. According to security sources, the continuing activity from this dissident loyalist group is holding up IRA decommissioning but is also preventing any arms hand over from the other main loyalist paramilitary organisations.
The mainstream loyalist paramilitaries say they cannot give in weapons while there is a threat to their position within the loyalist community from armed and active dissidents.