Republican Sinn Fein is claiming that an increasing number of Provisional IRA members are realising that the peace process will not lead to a united Ireland and that their leaders have misdirected them.
The party's vice-president, Mr Des Long, who was speaking yesterday at the Manchester Martyrs' Memorial in Mount St Lawrence cemetery in Limerick, urged the dissidents to reunite with his party to "fight for a united Ireland".
He claimed Provisional IRA leaders were "discredited" and that "hunger for political power" had compromised their republicanism.
If they possessed any honour, they would "walk away and leave the struggle for freedom to men and women of courage and vision who will lead us to the Republic". Many of the dissidents were "genuine people who have been misled and are now confused as they try to figure out where their leadership went wrong", Mr Long said.
In an appeal to the dissidents, he said: "They must reunite with us in the republican movement and work towards achieving a British withdrawal from Ireland. As republicans we know this age-old conflict cannot be resolved by talk around a table.
"We know this provisional peace process is doomed to failure. We know because amid all the sound-bites and speculation, the public relations and propaganda, no one has focused on the real cause of the conflict, the British presence in Ireland."
Mr Long accused the Provisional leadership of duplicity and predicted that it would not be able to escape its current internal difficulties.
"The Provisionals can engage in all the sleight of hand at their command, they can soft-soap their supporters, they can bamboozle their backers, and they can hint, nod and wink, but it will not stop their followers asking the hard question: `Will this so-called peace process lead to a united Ireland?'
"The honest answer has to be `No'."