Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, who will meet the British prime minister, Tony Blair, in London on Thursday, has called on the IRA to assist the PSNI in apprehending and convicting the killers of Robert McCartney.
Mr Ahern said that anyone present when Mr McCartney was fatally stabbed outside Magennis's bar in Belfast should co-operate with the authorities to ensure a successful prosecution. "The only people who have the authority under law and the ability to deal with that is the PSNI.
"They need co-operation to do that and if the IRA can assist in all of that, then that's part of the answer," he said.
The McCartney family yesterday called on the IRA to "order" those involved in the murder to give themselves up.
The murdered man's sister, Catherine, said those responsible should be forced to admit their role in his killing. "Now those that were involved in Robert's murder, many of them were members of the IRA. In our estimation, the IRA considers itself to be an army, so rather than just appealing to these people and saying 'go and hand yourselves in please' - should they not be ordered to hand themselves in?" she told the BBC.
SDLP deputy leader Dr Alasdair McDonnell said Mr McCartney was murdered because he "refused to bend the knee to Provo bosses".
"If it had not been for the extraordinary determination of the McCartneys to secure justice and their courage in speaking out, Sinn Féin would have got away with the cover-up, just as they succeeded in covering up so many murders by the IRA in recent years," he added.
"Despite fine words by Sinn Féin and the IRA, despite their public claims to support the family, the cover-up and lying are still going on," he added.
Tomorrow at a meeting of the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference in Dublin, Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern and Northern secretary Paul Murphy will discuss the continuing fallout from the murder of Mr McCartney, the Northern Bank robbery and alleged IRA multimillion pound money laundering.
The Taoiseach will take time from engagements in London on Thursday to hold a brief meeting with Mr Blair in Downing Street.
They will examine the same issues but British and Irish sources said the encounter is more of a stock-taking exercise and nothing significant is expected to emerge. Following his meeting with Mr Blair, Mr Ahern will meet leading British business people over dinner at the Irish Embassy. Mr Ahern will deal with questions on the Irish economy during the dinner, to be hosted by the Irish Ambassador to the UK, Mr Daithí Ó Ceallaigh.
Irish sources emphasised that Mr Ahern and Mr Blair will do little more than review recent events during Thursday's meeting. "It would be wrong to hype this. There has been no contact with SF over recent weeks," one source said.
The two leaders will take some comfort from DUP leader the Rev Ian Paisley's interview with RTÉ on Sunday where he indicated that if the IRA verifiably decommissioned and ceased paramilitarism and criminality, he would share power with Sinn Féin.
Mr Ahern said he was encouraged by these comments, which were consistent with the position of the DUP during the pre-Christmas talks.
