McDowell reaction: It is now for "the Provisional movement" - Sinn Féin and the IRA - to resolve the problems which currently ensure that no party, North or South, is willing to share power with it, the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, said yesterday.
Responding yesterday to the publication of the IMC report, Mr McDowell also repeated the Government's opposition to any imposition of sanctions on Sinn Féin as a result of the report.
"The Irish Government's point of view is that whatever we do now must be constructive", he said. "One thing the Provisional movement and in particular Sinn Féin would latch on to is any suggestion that they were now being victimised or discriminated against as a political party or punished on a financial basis."
"It is the judgment of the Irish Government that the greatest sanction in all of these matters is the sanction of public opinion, and the Irish public now should exercise the sanction of their own judgment on these matters."
The Minister said the IMC report spoke for itself, and was that of an independent body. "The Independent Monitoring Commission's members tested and challenged the information that was put to them and did their own investigations and have come to the firm conclusion, which is the phrase they use, that the Northern Bank robbery was committed by the Provisional IRA.
"They have also come to the view that as long as Sinn Féin retains its link to the IRA and as long as the IRA continues to engage in activity of this kind that it cannot be said that the Sinn Féin party is pursuing peaceful and democratic means.
"From the point of view of the Irish Government, our view is very simply that this is the report of an international independent body consisting of people of the highest integrity and objectivity and that they have come to the same conclusion that the Government have. They haven't simply relied on what they heard from the two governments but they tested out the information they had and went to other sources."
Mr McDowell repeated the Government's position that "household names and people we see on television are in fact members of the leadership of the IRA. Sinn Féin and the IRA are two faces of the same coin.
"It is our view, and the information available to the Government is that there is no split in the Provisional movement, that it is a unified disciplined movement, and that the leadership of that movement effectively calls the shots for both the IRA and Sinn Féin."
He said the Government was disappointed that the rhetoric of Sinn Féin hasn't been matched by reality.
"The ball is now firmly in the court of the Provisional movement: they must now address these issues. They must now reflect on why there is no immediate prospect of the restoration of the executive in Northern Ireland and why it is that no other party is willing in present circumstances to share power with it North or South of the Border," Mr McDowell said.