SPECULATION that the IRA is moving towards a reinstatement of its ceasefire - and is preparing for a special Army Council Convention to debate the matter - has been strongly denied by senior republican sources.
A Government spokesman last night refused to comment on reports "coming from anonymous sources". Asked if the Government had any indication from security forces of another ceasefire, the spokesman replied: "We won't comment on security briefings either." "I don't know where these reports are coming from," he added.
While officials remain tight lipped about speculation that opinion in the IRA has swung behind the idea of another ceasefire, there is apparently no evidence in Government or opposition circles to support the conjecture.
According to some political sources in Leinster House, the recent reports of a dramatic mood swing in the republican movement flew in the face of all other knowledge and perceptions. Contacts with people close to the situation in Northern. Ireland were not furnishing any information to the effect that a ceasefire was on the cards, they added.
Meanwhile, republican sources yesterday insisted that the basis for the reports was "illogical". Nothing had altered politically to warrant a ceasefire, one source said.
"I fail to see how anyone with any sense of the current situation can conclude that these reports are correct. The reports suggest that the IRA will call a convention to end the war and hand over some weapons, presumably on the basis this would allow Sinn Fein into the Stormont talks.
"But this theory falls flat when you look at the talks because no republican believes it is a viable process, a real or serious process of negotiations," he added.
It was "unthinkable" to assume the IRA leadership would attempt to persuade its rank and file to go into talks that are regarded as "a joke" in republican circles. The sources claimed that security force personnel in Britain were involved in briefing journalists in the hope that their stories would "create confusion" in the republican movement; they were "designed to put pressure on Sinn Fein and the IRA".
The "elements" necessary for a reinstatement of the ceasefire did not exist at the moment, he said. These included the promise of "inclusive negotiations, without preconditions, to be held within a reasonable timeframe".
"If these things happened, it would reawaken the possibility of another IRA ceasefire," the source said.
Both the Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, and ard chomhairle member, Mr Martin McGuinness, told journalists they had "no knowledge" of the basis for the media reports.