Do they take us democrats, North and South of the Border, for complete fools? What a contrick they tried to perpetrate on us all, nationalists as well as unionists on the island.
The considered view of the Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, Mr Hugh Orde, that the IRA was responsible for the Northern Bank robbery is a most serious development that may not end the peace process, as our London Editor, Frank Millar, writes today, but inflicts fatal damage on the political process as we have known it. We have been conned, those of us North and South of the island, who were urging Sinn Féin and the IRA to do the deal of deals with the Democratic Unionist Party in order to bring about final acts of completion on decommissioning, demilitarisation, policing, the restoration of the Northern institutions and an accommodation between the DUP and Sinn Féin in government.
This the darkest hour in the political process in Northern Ireland where there is no immediate means of reconciling the monumental breach of faith. The Northern Bank robbery has demonstrated that we are more than a photograph away from a restored Executive now.
The offer by the IRA in its New Year message to move into a new mode is meaningless. Especially as it failed to provide clarification sought by the governments that, in such a situation, its members would not "endanger anyone's personal rights and safety" .
The idea that the IRA would be planning the Northern Bank robbery at the same time that the president of Sinn Féin, Mr Gerry Adams, and the proposed Deputy First Minister, Mr Martin McGuinness, would be negotiating final acts of completion with the two governments just beggars belief.
The IRA initially denied any involvement. But the latest, formal statement from the IRA leadership does not do so. Instead, it speaks vaguely of attempts to criminalise its volunteers but does not refer directly to the robbery. There are echoes here of the mendacious statements made after the murder of Det Garda Jerry McCabe, after the importation of arms and ammunition, and following the arrests of the three men in Colombia. It will not do. Republicans have been allowed to wrap themselves in the mantle of victimhood far too frequently in order to deflect public concerns.
Mr Ahern, and Mr Blair, have accepted Mr Orde's view on IRA involvement. Mr Ahern has expressed disappointment that while he was negotiating in good faith with Sinn Féin, the IRA leadership was planning the robbery. But there was no sense of outrage, of a determination to lock up the criminals. Mr Ahern spoke, instead, of previous disappointments and of "keeping at it". That mind-set cannot last.
The breach of trust with the democratic community is so serious this time that both governments have to take stock of the peace process.