The PSNI chief constable has admitted there cannot be total certainty that IRA members are not involved in forms of criminality.
Sir Hugh Orde was speaking yesterday after a meeting of the policing board in which he backed the broad thrust of Wednesday's Independent Monitoring Commission report into paramilitary activity. However, when asked if there were details in the report regarding IRA involvement in crime he might not accept, Sir Hugh said: "There is never going to be absolute clarity."
He nevertheless went on to praise the report in its entirety. "What I was very clear on was the IMC report has our support. We do agree with it in full terms. It is an accurate description of where we think the main [ paramilitary] groups are.
The most important bit is the bit that is already catching the headlines, namely that the IRA are going in the right direction and I would support that entirely. We have no evidence to suggest they are doing anything other than what they committed themselves to doing."
Pressed to state if there were specifics in the report that he may not accept in full, Sir Hugh replied: "There is always the potential for a case that surprises all of us - people operating without authority of their own illegal organisation. We have to make judgments on each case."
Sources on the board suggested privately that some senior PSNI officers were uncomfortable with suggestions that the IRA had ceased organisational involvement in crime. One source said the chief constable had left himself with room for manoeuvre on the question of IRA-sanctioned crime.
However SDLP policing spokesman Alex Attwood issued a statement insisting the position of the PSNI was clear. "The chief constable made it clear to the policing board in both public and private sessions that he agreed with the assessment of the IMC in respect of the Provisional IRA."