David Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Senators from Fianna Fáil and from the Government parties have talked about an abandonment of law and order, intimidation, control, criminality, a lack of transparency, insinuations that some political parties are benefitting from crime, and bandit country, when they talk about one of the 32 counties of our country. They make all of these charges. I will read into the record of the House exactly what the Chief Constable of the PSNI said in his assessment of the IRA a number of weeks ago. It seems to me that the Leader of the House and the Leader of the Seanad is on a completely different page from the person who is charged with making these assessments, who has the intelligence and who is the person who has put his view very clearly on the record. He said, "We assess that in the organisational sense the Provisional IRA does not exist for paramilitary purposes." He goes on to say, "Our assessment indicates that a primary focus of the Provisional IRA is now promoting a peaceful, political Republican agenda." The Chief Constable of the PSNI says that the primary focus of all republicans is that they follow a peaceful, republican agenda. Obviously, the Leader of the House and some of the Senators do not agree with that. He goes on to say, "It is our assessment that the Provisional IRA is committed to following a political path and is no longer engaged in [violence]." He also says-----