Minister for Justice Michael McDowell has urged the Provisional movement to indicate at the Sinn Féin ardfheis that it will bring a definitive end to IRA paramilitarism, crime and thuggery.
While the Minister gave a qualified welcome to the suspension of seven Sinn Féin members in connection with the murder of Robert McCartney, he said the move came very late.
The Sinn Féin ardfheis this weekend would be a moment of truth for the republican movement to bring about a sea change in the way it does business.
In separate remarks, Mr McDowell suggested that Northern Ireland could be "pooled" with the Republic as a single unit for the purposes of its dealings with the EU.
While stating in Maynooth, Co Kildare, that the Garda was operating on the basis that the cash seized in Cork was stolen in the Northern Bank raid in December, he said no other theory was being examined by the force.
On the McCartney murder, he said it was necessary for everyone in Ireland to show utter disapproval at the killing and to stand by Mr McCartney's sisters and partner in their struggle for justice.
"If the implication of the suspension is that Gerry Adams is at last and belatedly responding to the outrage and wave of public emotion going in his direction and in the direction of his movement it's welcome acknowledgment even if it's very little and very late."
Mr McDowell said republicans would have a good opportunity at the Sinn Féin ardfheis to reflect on whether they could bring paramilitarism and "the regime of fear" to an end, because they had gone on for too long.
"I think with the glare of publicity on them, a lot of people will be looking to see whether it is the end for the IRA, whether it is the end for armed violence in our society."
He said any failure to make such a move this weekend would only postpone a decision that would have to be made if there was to be any degree of normalisation in the North or if other parties were to do business with Sinn Féin.
Meanwhile, at a PD lunch in Dublin, Mr McDowell said the island of Ireland could be treated as a single unit within the EU in the medium or long term. Such a development would be without prejudice to constitutional issues related to unionism or the creation of a united Ireland.
While it was ironic that hostility to the EU seemed strongest at both ends of the political spectrum in the North, Ireland's EU membership had been good for both parts of the island.
"Personally speaking, I wonder is it a bridge too far to envisage in the medium term that the people of Ireland could share their future in Europe by pooling Ireland's status in Europe as part of the North-South institutions between the two parts of this island?"
He said the notion sounded radical, but the economic and political interests in the European Union of the North and the Republic were closely intertwined and similar.
