The PSNI has engaged in absurd back-pedalling over an intelligence assessment on Sinn Féin and the IRA.

Asked last week by Jamie Bryson if a 2015 report still stands, the PSNI replied it did. This caused several media outlets to repeat the report’s findings that the IRA still exists, is involved in criminality and controls Sinn Féin.

These stories were entirely predictable – there was similar coverage when the PSNI last confirmed the assessment in 2021. But it seems the PSNI did not predict them, given its panicked reaction. It suddenly said its reply had been “misconstrued”, without explaining how, then refused to say any more.

Intelligence assessments are made continuously and confidential reports are produced regularly. In 2020, the BBC got hold of one from two years earlier on loyalists, which is also presumed to still stand.

Newton Emerson: Police back-pedalling, Stormont stone-walling and a plague of biting insects

Patrick Murphy: Sinn Féin has reached its de Valera moment but cannot take the next step

The 2015 assessment was unique because it was commissioned by the secretary of state following two IRA-linked murders and made public to head off a possible collapse of Stormont.

It was a rare moment when constructive ambiguity had to be suspended, but the moment passed and we have returned to our sophisticated peace process norm of not letting too much daylight in on magic. Alas, for that same reason, the PSNI cannot unambiguously say so.

**

A hearing of Stormont’s Executive Office committee, which oversees the department of the first and deputy first ministers, has been widely branded a farce.

First minister Michelle O’Neill attended to........

© The Irish News