The SDLP, DUP and Alliance Party have urged the British government to toughen its stance against paramilitary activity.
Mr Eddie McGrady, the SDLP MP for South Down, has accused the government of repeating a mantra about non-acceptance of paramilitary violence and crime, and of caving in to republican pressure.
The DUP deputy leader, Mr Peter Robinson, said the government had to end its "tolerance of IRA behaviour".
The Alliance Party said the IRA had continued certain activities "with impunity", and that republicans now had to "sign up to agreed common standards".
Mr McGrady said a statement by the Northern Secretary, Mr Murphy, that there could be "absolutely no place for terrorist activity, and there can be no place for criminal activity" had been heard time and time again.
He said criminality in the North would only cease if the two governments ceased to be intimidated by "the paramilitary force of Sinn Féin and the IRA".
Mr Robinson demanded that Mr Murphy "specify" the Provisional IRA as a terrorist organisation.
"It is clear that, following Florida, Colombia, Stormont and Castlereagh, as well as the 22 murders committed by the IRA during its so-called ceasefire, their having engaged in 250 shootings and 400 beatings and now a £26.5 million bank raid, there is a powerful reason for the Secretary of State to end his tolerance of IRA behaviour."
He also said the UDA should publicly disown the criminal elements who were still engaged in intimidation, racketeering and drug dealing.
Alliance Party justice spokesman Mr Stephen Farry, said the "problem of continued Republican paramilitary and criminal activity" would now have to be addressed.
"The confirmation by the chief constable of IRA involvement in the Northern Bank raid now puts all IRA paramilitary and criminal activity on the agenda."