Army Council members told of ‘McGuigan’ killing
TWO IRA Members who sit on the Provisional IRA Army Council gave permission for the killing of former IRA man Kevin McGuigan in 2015, sources have told the Irish Mail on Sunday.
People on the council also arranged for a guard of honour and volley of shots to be fired over the coffin of veteran republican Peter Rooney last year.
Garda Commissioner Drew Harris this week told reporters how he agrees with a 2015 PSNI assessment that the Army Council of the Provisional IRA still strategically oversees Sinn Féin.
Speaking at a graduation ceremony of new recruits in Templemore, Commissioner Harris said: ‘In national security matters and matters around the State, it is my obligation to report to the government as you would expect me to do.
‘Also, we have been contributing to the IRC (Independent Reporting Commission) reporting on the status of various paramilitary groups and we would hold with their opinion on these matters.
‘I am also aware of the PSNI and the British security services assessment and we do not differ from that view.’
Asked if he would have concerns about Sinn Féin in government, Commissioner Harris said he was a public servant and would work with whatever government is put in place.
‘I have heavy responsibilities in terms of protecting the people of Ireland in preventing and detecting crime and we will work with whatever minister to achieve those aims,’ he said.
A source told the MoS: ‘The commissioner’s assessment is not inaccurate. The identities of those sitting on the council are known.
‘Sinn Féin cannot agree to anything that goes against the overall aim of the Army Council,’ the source said. ‘Their stated aim is still “with a ballot box in one hand and an Armalite in the other”, we’ll take control of the whole of Ireland.’
In 2015, Northern Ireland’s senior police officer said that the Provisional IRA still existed but was not on a war footing and was committed to the peace process.
PSNI Chief Constable George Hamilton said at the time: ‘They are not on a war footing, they are not involved in paramilitary activity in the sense that they were during part of the conflict.’
In 2018, Mr Hamilton told the BBC that while ‘aspects of the IRA still exist’ it was ‘not for a terrorist purpose’.
Speaking after the commissioner’s comments Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said: ‘The war is over, the IRA is off the stage.’