Orde claims IRA still recruiting and targeting

The IRA is still engaged in targeting security force members, PSNI Chief Constable Hugh Orde claimed today.

Mr Orde, who was speaking at a PSNI awards presentation ceremony in Belfast, said that although the group was still recruiting he did not believe that they would return to violence.

"Currently, I am absolutely clear the Provisional IRA are not going back to an armed struggle,” Mr Orde said. "That is my current assessment. They have the capability. They have the capacity.

"We know they are still recruiting, they still target, they still carry out the activities that they have always done with the exception of actually going out to kill soldiers, police, civilians, members of the public."

Sinn Féin Westminster candidate for Foyle, Mitchel McLaughlin, immediately dismissed the comments as “yet another political intervention,” by Mr Orde.

“At a time when those of us in the leadership of Sinn Féin are concentrating on rebuilding the political process… nationalists and republicans will view Hugh Orde’s comments today as yet another political intervention from the PSNI,” Mr McLaughlin said.

Last week, Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern told the Dail that the IRA was still training and recruiting new members and that some members had also moved on to criminality.

(MB/SP)