Flanagan to discuss IRA controversy with Villiers in Dublin

Ms Fitzgerald, of the senior coalition partner Fine Gael, said the current security assessment is that the IRA remains on an exclusively political path with “military” units disbanded.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs Charlie Flanagan is set to discuss the IRA controversy with the Northern Secretary Theresa Villiers in Dublin next week.

“But if new evidence emerges, clearly we want to hear about that and that is always under assessment”, she said.

But she said security assessments needed to be kept under review in the light of the emergence of any fresh evidence in the ongoing PSNI investigation.

She declared that one of the issues to be examined is what the PSNI have been learning about any Provisional IRA structures as a result of their investigation.

Mr Reiss, president George W Bush’s special envoy at the time of decommissioning in 2005, said a last-minute request from Gerry Adams, later rejected, for the IRA to retain some arms to protect itself against dissident republicans was “an understandable request” from the Sinn Féin leader’s perspective, though that didn’t mean it was right. Sinn Fein said there is no basis for the threats.

On Tuesday, Tánaiste Joan Burton said she did not believe him.

“When people leave the stage, that leaves the question where do they go?”

However, contrary to instructions, some individual members were involved in criminality for personal gain, she said.

She has remained deeply loyal to the Garda Commissioner, whose claims previously that there is no intelligence to suggest the IRA maintains its structures raised eyebrows within the Republic’s police force.

“Whoever’s involved in this…I can tell you they do not represent republicanism”.

The saga is playing out on both sides of the border, with parties north and south setting their sights squarely on Sinn Féin.

Ms Fitzgerald is backing Ms Villiers’ call for political parties in Northern Ireland to get on with their work and allow the PSNI investigation into the murders to continue.

Ms Villiers’ comments were given a lukewarm reception from some in the Ulster Unionist Party, ahead of a meeting at Stormont on Monday afternoon.

Mr Reiss has said that the British government agreed to the request but wanted to check with the Irish government before proceeding, and that then minister for justice Michael McDowell opposed it.