The scale of the fall-out from the £26½ million bank raid is immense, writes Dan Keenan
It has thrown the political process into turmoil, with the fall-out extending beyond Belfast to London, Dublin and Washington.
It has put the Chief Constable's neck on the block and the standing of the fledgling PSNI under the closest scrutiny.
It has prompted an urgent review of bank security across the globe, involving police forces and governments.
It has forced the withdrawal of hundreds of millions in banknotes and the hasty design of replacements.
The largest theft of cash in British and Irish history, carried out by a sizeable, sophisticated gang which did not cross the threshold of the institution it robbed, is a watershed which could make or break the peace process.
One month on, there is still no sign of the £26.5 million, no sign of the getaway van, and no one has been arrested. Senior officers say that this is going to be a long, long haul.
Yet, despite the high stakes, the PSNI, the Taoiseach and the political parties other than Sinn Féin are convinced that senior republicans planned the robbery.
The Chief Constable, Mr Hugh Orde, has convinced the Irish and British governments, as well as implacable political foes on the policing board, that his assessment of where responsibility lies is correct. Insiders say that the assessment he gave to the board on Thursday was convincing and assured.
"It was a stormer," said one highly-reliable source who was present. "Orde and [ Assistant Chief Constable] Kinkaid both. This wasn't the Hugh Orde who once had to apologise for the televised raids on Sinn Féin's offices at Stormont - this was a man confident of his organisation and his senior officers."
Sources with good republican contacts say they are unable to come up with a viable alternative theory about the Northern Bank job. Everyone, including Mr Orde himself, knows that, if he is wrong on this, he is finished.
The PSNI's senior investigating officer is aware of the political and personal stakes and is as calm as he is certain that the IRA did it.
Det Supt Andy Sproule says: "There is no doubt where the blame lies. It was not a group of maverick individuals going out to do it on their own bat. An operation of this size would have been sanctioned at the very highest level in that organisation because of its scale, complexity and ramifications."
Mr Sproule has the benefit of intelligence, a productive liaison with the Garda and now, crucially, evidence to back it up.
Of the Chief Constable's accusation of blame directed at the IRA, Mr Sproule is emphatic: "I support that on the basis of the information and the evidence, the intelligence that I have. There is no doubt."
Mr Sproule links the current investigation - involving 45 detectives and some 15 additional forensic specialists - with the theft of intelligence documents from Castlereagh on St Patrick's Day, 2002. "Again, it has been attributed to the same organisation, so you would have to say 'yes', there are linkages."
With the fingering of the most senior Belfast IRA members, the PSNI also believes there was vital support from individuals in Co Down, where a Northern Bank deputy manager and his wife were taken hostage, and possibly from Co Louth, too.
"Why, if the job was centred on Belfast, bring a van up from Newry if there wasn't involvement of people south of Belfast?" asks Mr Sproule.
Mrs Karen McMullan, wife of the deputy manager of the Northern Bank's cash centre, was released late at night near an isolated forest, traumatised and disoriented, dressed in a forensic-style boiler-suit. This place is so isolated, Mr Sproule believes, that local knowledge would have been needed. "The area of Drumkeeragh Forest - it's in the middle of nowhere. [ For anyone] to find their way . . . may be difficult."
He believes that he is searching for a gang of at least 10 and probably many more. Thieves and hostage-takers were needed at the two family homes and at the remote site where one woman was held. There was a network of drivers, probably supported by look-outs and more cars. There was the lone figure who received £1.15 million during the "dummy run", and others, probably on foot in the vicinity of the bank, who monitored police and public activity.
Add to that those involved with the getaway van and those with expertise in handling and laundering huge volumes of cash.
Meanwhile, the slow, grinding detective work plods on.
"There are probably 1,200 'action sheets' or different lines of inquiry, there are four crime scenes [the two hostage scenes, the bank and the site where Mrs McMullan was released] and 900 exhibits," The Irish Times has been told.
In the small, windowless incident room which houses the investigation at North Queen Street PSNI station, dozens of labelled video cassettes are stacked together. Officers go through them frame by frame - searching seemingly endless hours of Belfast traffic for the elusive white Ford van as it made its trips to the bank to remove the stolen millions.
"There are some CCTV packages to watch which will take months," says Mr Sproule. "We have hundreds of statements. We are very encouraged by the support from the public. People have been ringing in . . . there has been considerable interest from people genuinely wanting to help. What they haven't been able to provide us with is 'where is the van' and 'where is the money-type information'. But we are very encouraged and we are following up every line of investigation."
Significant advances have been made, but the senior investigating officer cannot and will not say what they are.
The Northern Bank, meanwhile, is trying to come to terms with the implications of the record raid.
The chief executives of the four main banks in the North have met British ministers to discuss security. With traditional images of heavily-fortified, impregnable banks now shattered by the robbers' tactic of forcing bank staff to open the doors and carry out the contents of the vault, banks are urgently reviewing their operations.
Just as there is no easy measure to counter the suicide-bomber, there is no quick-fix solution to the "tiger kidnap" bank theft which involves the taking of hostages.
Police are convinced that the tactic of taking bank families hostage while one or more people are forced to circumvent the institution's security had its origin in the darkest days of the "Troubles".
Human bombs - whereby an individual was forced to drive a bomb towards a police station or other target - proved lethally effective in the days before anyone dared to hope for a peace process.
In the post-ceasefire era this tactic has been amended to facilitate significant thefts from banks, post offices and retail warehouses. There have been more than 40 such robberies in the past two years.
Now banks around the world are facing the shocking but simple truth that no security regime can stand in the way of a coerced member of staff equipped with the keys and codes.
The Northern Bank has already moved to relocate some 40 staff from its stricken headquarters to other branches and offices - prompted into a quick response by the fact that the robbers evidently knew a great deal about them. The relocation was partly due to humanitarian concerns about anxious staff, but it was also conducted to disrupt the in-depth intelligence which the robbers clearly had.
Shock among the Northern Bank management has been transformed to anger and perhaps a little panic at the intelligent ease with which the robbery was conducted. But the public appears to have little sympathy for the plight of a large financial institution. There is also a perceived public obsession with the "political crisis" aspect of the story.
The management of the bank now finds itself trying to rebuild its image as it withdraws its banknotes and joins the queue at one of only two printers anywhere in the world capable of producing newly-designed cash.
The bank may well review the out-sourcing of security to a private contractor as it faces its imminent transfer from its Australian owners to a Danish concern.
The scale of the fall-out from the robbery, both political and financial, is truly immense. If indeed Hugh Orde, Bertie Ahern and others are correct about IRA involvement, what remains unclear is why they did it. Quite why the IRA would jeopardise a peace process during which it has called two cessations - a process which Sinn Féin has spent more than a decade trying to establish - makes no political sense.
However, one well-placed government official believes that, if December's attempt to secure a Sinn Féin/DUP deal enabling a restoration of Stormont had succeeded, then the Northern Bank job was off.