THE IRISH and British governments will co-operate closely to target the increasing threat posed by dissident republican groups in the months ahead, Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern has said.
At his first formal meeting last night with the new Northern Secretary Owen Paterson, Mr Ahern discussed plans to enhance co-operation between the Garda and the PSNI.
They also discussed the threat posed by dissident paramilitary groups like the Continuity IRA and the Real IRA, which he said were capable of “awful atrocities”.
“I don’t think there is any chance that we will go back to the dark days of the past because the political institutions are too strong, but these people are very serious and one bomb or one atrocity would be awful if it happens,” Mr Ahern said yesterday.
The Minister said the Garda and PSNI would deepen co-operation by performing more joint operations against dissidents and enhancing interoperability in telecommunications and technology.
Mr Ahern said the capabilities of the two republican paramilitary groups were increasing.
They were becoming more adept at putting together explosive devices, even though there was little evidence of community support.
“I don’t think there is a huge element of recruitment . . . but there may be an element of better cross-fertilisation between the CIRA and RIRA – instead of being separate organisations, they are coming together and sharing their capabilities,” said Mr Ahern.
He said there have been suggestions that one or two former provisional IRA activists had joined the dissident groups. However, he did not know for a fact if this was the case.
Mr Ahern met Mr Paterson for talks at the Ballymascanlon hotel outside Dundalk, Co Louth, which is located close to the suspected bomb factory where two dissident republicans were arrested earlier this month in a joint operation between the Garda and the PSNI.
Conan Murphy (23) and Philip McKevitt (56) from Dundalk were charged with unlawful possession of explosives at a sitting of the Special Criminal Court earlier this week.
Speaking shortly before the meeting with Mr Paterson, Mr Ahern said he had been in close contact with the Northern Secretary over the past week and the British authorities were delighted with the recent Garda activity targeting dissidents.
“All we can do is continuously work together to defeat these people and to prevent them from doing these actions,” he said.
Earlier this week, the two governments published the Independent Monitoring Commission, which reports on the level of paramilitary activity.
It outlined that the threat posed by dissident republican groups is severe and highlighted a number of serious gun and bomb attacks, which have been carried out in the past six months.
The dissidents are also shown to be responsible for a catalogue of other criminal activity, including robbery, assaults, smuggling, extortion and kidnapping.
“The range and nature of RIRA’s activities were, by any yardstick, a very serious matter,” according to the commission.
“It constituted much the most serious threat.”
The commission said the Real IRA was in a state of “heightened activity”, was determined to kill and was committed to “undermining the peace process”.
It was also involved in serious crime.
Mr Ahern and Mr Paterson are expected to meet again soon.