The Independent Monitoring Commission will tomorrow publish its "most positive" report to date on IRA activity. It will confirm the weekend views of the Taoiseach and Northern Secretary that the IRA is actively striving to prevent individual members engaging in criminality, according to well-placed sources.
The IMC will repeat its controversial finding in its February report that there are "credible" reports that not all of the IRA's weapons were handed over for decommissioning last September. It will state more positively, however, that these weapons were being retained against the specific orders of the IRA leadership, The Irish Times was informed.
The other disputed element of the February IMC report was that the IRA, while not a paramilitary threat, was still engaged in intelligence-gathering authorised by the leadership. Tomorrow's report, to be published at a press conference in Belfast, will state that while the IRA is still compiling intelligence the organisation "is moving away from intelligence gathering", senior sources said yesterday.
"This will be the most positive report about IRA activity so far," said one well-informed source yesterday.
The IMC is holding to its February position that there are "credible" reports that some weapons and ammunition were not decommissioned in September. In tomorrow's report, however, it will state that some individual IRA members or units appear to have retained arms but that this was in defiance of IRA orders.
The report is about to be launched as the DUP in Killarney yesterday continued to insist it could not enter into a power-sharing government with Sinn Féin until it is satisfied that the IRA has eschewed criminality as well as paramilitarism.
The IMC will again state that the IRA poses no paramilitary threat and also point to growing evidence that the IRA is actively working to ensure an end to criminality carried out by IRA members.
This will confirm the weekend comments by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Northern Secretary Peter Hain that the IRA leadership is "cracking down" on criminal activity, sources said.
This 10th report of the IMC will also make positive reference to comments of senior Sinn Féin figures such as the party's chief negotiator, Martin McGuinness, denouncing criminality. In reference to the hijacking of a lorry in Co Meath two weeks ago, it is expected to note how Mr McGuinness directly after the raid condemned the hijacking, said the IRA had "no, hand, act or part" in the incident and that anyone involved in criminality "should be arrested, charged and brought before a judge and a jury of his or her peers".
The IMC will also say that dissident republicans continue to pose a threat and while some loyalists speak of moving away from paramilitarism and criminality, there is no actual evidence of this happening, the sources said.
