The RUC Chief Constable, Mr Ronnie Flanagan, has said the Northern paramilitaries are holding firmly to their cessation of violence.
"I think those organisations which are currently engaged in cessations of violence are demonstrating a rigid adherence to those cessations. That is very much to be welcomed. So the level of terrorist activity is very significantly reduced."
However, Mr Flanagan said that did not mean there was no threat of violence. "These organisations continue to be intact, and there is no reduction in their capability, even though there is this tremendously significant reduction in their level of activity."
He said he believed those organisations genuinely wanted to see an end to violence, but because they were still there, and had the capability, they still posed a threat to society.
Interviewed by Gerald Barry on This Week on RTE Radio, Mr Flanagan said there were some organisations, such as the Continuity IRA, not in cessation. "There is a risk that while they exist they attract others. And that is something I know my colleagues in the Garda are watching very carefully. It is something we are watching very carefully. It is something we are working together on, to make sure that we will thwart any intention those people would have to perpetrate violence."
Asked if the so-called "Real IRA" was a threat, Mr Flanagan said: "I think they have to be considered to be continuing to pose a threat, and indeed all those organisations which are on cessation, because they are intact, and still have access to significant quantities of ammunition and explosives, and their level of capability has not, in any sense, been reduced."
"As far as I am concerned, it is my job to derive intelligence as to where people are unlawfully holding firearms and explosives, to recover them, and make amenable to the law anybody unlawfully holding them. Decommissioning is a political issue and must firmly remain in the political arena," Mr Flanagan said.
