THE IRA`s ruling body, the army council, no longer has an army to command and control. British Northern Ireland secretary, Shaun Woodward, says that the IRA was dissolving after a politically sensitive report by the International Monitoring Commission, the organisation charged with overseeing the Provisionals` (IRA) ceasefire.

The commission reported on Thursday that the IRA`s seven-man army council had fallen into “disuse,” but there would be no formal announcement of its being disbanded. Responding to the IMC`s 19th report, Woodward said “I would go further and say this is there an army for the army council to direct? It now seems according to this report there is not.”

Privately, the British and Irish governments accept the IRA cannot publicly announce its ruling body has been dissolved because it fears that its base would feel humiliated. Such a move would also leave it open to charges of selling out to unionists by dissident republicans.

In its latest report, the IMC said “The mechanism which they [the IRA] have chosen to bring the armed conflict to a complete end has been the standing down of the structures which engaged in the armed campaign, and the conscious decision to fall into disuse.”

It added “Now that that campaign is well and truly over, the army council by deliberate choice is no longer operational or functional.” The report`s authors also exonerated the IRA as an organisation from involvement in non-terrorist crimes, although it accepted some of its individual members or ex-members may be engaged in “ordinary” criminal activity.

Overall, the ceasefire monitoring commission said the IRA posed no threat to peace or the democratic process. It said it saw “no grounds” for believing that the IRA and its membership could return to “war”.

The Irish government emphasised the significance of the IMC`s conclusion that the IRA not only did not intend to return to war, but was also now incapable of doing so.

“This report demonstrates not only that PIRA (Provisional IRA)has gone away, but that it won`t be coming back. The IMC could not have been more unequivocal in its conclusion that the Provisional movement is now irreversibly locked into following the political path,” Dermot Ahern, Ireland`s justice minister, said.

The latest report is crucial, given the current pressures on the Northern Ireland power-sharing government.

— The Guardian, London