Continuity IRA sources have said informal meetings between dissident republicans have taken place to discuss future strategy but no plans have been drawn up to form a new umbrella organisation.
The sources were speaking after a report in yesterday's Irish News that negotiations about setting up a new group comprising the Continuity IRA and disgruntled "Real IRA" and INLA members were at an advanced stage. The "Real IRA" and the INLA called cease-fires shortly after the Omagh bomb.
A Continuity IRA source said several meetings between "republicans from a variety of organisations" had been held over recent months no decision had been made to set up an umbrella paramilitary group. The source said contact was ongoing.
Before the Omagh bomb there was substantial co-operation between CIRA, the "Real IRA", and the INLA. The Irish Republican Socialist Party, the INLA's political wing, yesterday denied the INLA had any disgruntled members.
However, dissident republican sources told The Irish Times that while there is no question of a split in the INLA and the organisation's ceasefire is not under threat, there were individual disaffected members in Dublin and along the Border. The majority of INLA members in urban areas of the North fully support the ceasefire.
In a statement yesterday, Mr Paul Little of the IRSP said the INLA was united and its ceasefire had been unanimously endorsed at an IRSP ardfheis last weekend.